BX 6480 
.P9 F5 
Copy 1 






H 



■Mfflfutfv 



A < C c c 

Ji CC < c c 

5 c c <: c c 

<c> ccr (Sg-^<>, 



c<ce 



0: 


i c 






•■ < 


c.a 


<x 


«. 


C*J 


CC 


m 


v C 


<c 


*: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.....— Copyright No... 
BhalfJES- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



■-:- >V >'-" i >3> cere 

v cc co< <r cc c < 

■ CC CO-<C . C Or 

& cscc cccc 
V c ^^ < cccc< 
cc c<3£<r cccr 

<-< Cc<5CC CC:. 
CC CffiCjC cxa 

,'.c cec< cc, 

a cecc cc 

■<L CCC4T feO 

£ ccc C CC< 

& ccCc cc 



.-■■' r c • 
c c 

if* 



«'■: cc 



cc c -. 

^BC C'<. 
* cl£c c I 



<c<cc c 

Pc C 

,. Cc« 
^ CCC 

=. tec 
etc 






C cc 
c cc 






<r C — 



*c\c' 






gHST 






«^oc 












ccc 



C CY 

- 






*ty*nxjgi 3U. IKing, m. B+ 



Smertcan 

baptist publication 

Society 




First Baptist Church (Meeting House), Providence, R» I. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 



A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN 
AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE FIRST 
BAPTIST CHURCH IN PROVIDENCE 



BY 

HENRY MELVILLE KING, D. D. 




■ 

PHILADELPHIA 
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

1420 Chestnut Street 
1 (a a 









ITH1 MI*A&/j| 



|#F 500JfOaE»»t-i 






Copyright 1896 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



Zo tbe Sacrefc flllemor^ 

OF THOSE OF PAST GENERATIONS, WHOSE 
PRAYERS AND TOILS AND SELF-DE- 
NIALS HAVE MINISTERED TO 
THE UNBROKEN LIFE 
OF THE 

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN PROVIDENCE 

AND TO THE 
LIVING MEMBERS OF 
THE CHURCH WHO HAVE IN- 
HERITED A LEGACY OF PECULIAR 
HONOR AND GREAT RESPONSIBILITY 
THIS BRIEF ACCOUNT OF ITS EARLY HISTORY 

He Bffecttonatelg BeMcateD 



PREFACE 



American Baptists must always be interested in 
the beginnings of the denomination in this country. 
The present wide discussion indicates that the 
interest does not abate as the years go by. Every 
fresh effort to bring to light the facts of our early 
history is certain to receive a cordial welcome. 
What we all desire to know is the truth, that we 
may honor those to whom honor is due, and gather 
courage and inspiration from the heroic example, 
the loyal fidelity, and the patient sufferings of the 
fathers. An intimate acquaintance with the history 
of the past ought to enable us to make better his- 
tory in the future. Amid the discussions which 
are constantly arising, we realize more and more 
the importance of preserving all records and his- 
toric documents. Complete records pertaining to 
the first century of our denominational history in 
this country would be invaluable. 

This little volume contains a brief address on the 
early Baptists of Rhode Island, which was prepared 
by request, and delivered in the First Baptist meet- 
ing-house in Providence, July 1 6, 1895, before the 
Massachusetts delegates en route to the Baltimore 

5 



6 PREFACE 

Convention of the Baptist Young People's Union 
of America. It is allowed to remain as it was 
delivered, because it presents in careful outline, 
unencumbered by discussions, the early history 
of the First Baptist Church which is believed by 
the church to be correct, and has been accepted 
generally by historians and by the denomination. 
Explanatory notes have been added, covering 
matters of great historical interest not generally 
known, giving reasons for statements made in the 
address, describing the present venerable meeting- 
house occupied by the First Baptist Church (Note 
1 6), and discussing at considerable length the bap- 
tism of Roger Williams (Note 4), and also the 
questions of the priority of the church, and the un- 
broken continuity of its life (Notes 18, 19, and 
20). Access has been had to all published docu- 
ments relating to these matters, as far as known, 
and valuable manuscript testimony recently discov- 
ered has been adduced, which throws light upon 
some points which have been in dispute. Some 
features of the early history of this church, which is 
believed to be the first Baptist church in America, 
are presented here with a completeness of treat- 
ment which they have not thus far received. 

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
Reuben A. Guild, ll. d., librarian emeritus of 
Brown University, for valuable assistance in the 
preparation of these notes. 



PREFACE 7 

The names of Roger Williams and the First Bap- 
tist Church in Providence will always be associated 
with each other, and with the great principle of 
religious liberty, as well as with the origin of our 
denominational life in America. It is coming to 
be conceded more and more that this sublime doc- 
trine was first promulgated by the Anabaptists of 
the old world, and has been realized in civil gov- 
ernment largely by the efforts of the Baptists of the 
new world. Roger Williams, as the founder of the 
free State in which the government is in the hands 
of the people and restricted to civil affairs, and 
citizenship is without religious tests, is held in 
superior honor by all lovers of liberty. As the 
pioneer advocate in this country of a regenerate 
church, whose corner-stone is personal loyalty to 
Christ and his word, he can never be forgotten by 

American Baptists. 

H. M. K. 

June, 1896. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 1 



THIS is not the first time that Rhode Island has 
given hospitable welcome to exiles from the 
Massachusetts Bay. Ever since the days of Roger 
Williams, who, after being banished from Salem 
and wandering many days in the wintry wilderness, 
"not knowing what bread orbed did mean," found 
on this side of the Seekonk a safe retreat which, in 
recognition of the Divine leading and care, he 
gratefully called "Providence," Rhode Island has 
been somewhat noted for its hospitality. We are 
not of those who ask " Can any good thing come 
out of Nazareth? " To all who believe in religious 
liberty, in freedom of thought and of worship, in a 
spiritual church, in loyalty to Christ in all things, 
we extend a cordial welcome, whether for a brief 
visit or a longer stay. Once, when Roger Williams 
desired to visit the mother country by way of the 
Massachusetts Bay, that being the nearer route, he 
was forbidden to do so, and was not allowed to 

1 An address delivered in the First Baptist Meeting-house in 
Providence, before the Massachusetts delegates en route to the 
Baltimore Convention of the Young People's Baptist Union, July 
16, 1895. 

9 



IO THE MOTHER CHURCH 

cross its territory, lest his " pestilential" doctrines 
should infect the very atmosphere. He was com- 
pelled to go by way of New York, the New 
Netherlanders, who had tasted the spirit of a larger 
freedom in their old home, and had there sheltered 
the Pilgrim fathers and mothers during eleven most 
influential years, not being afraid of the presence or 
doctrine of this apostle of soul liberty, but bidding 
him welcome to their borders, and God-speed on his 
journey. We give you the freedom of our State, 
to cross it at your leisure, without let or hindrance, 
and if, on your return, you shall be sufficiently 
charmed with what you see to stay with us for the 
rest of your days, not the slightest obstacle will be 
placed in your way. To such immigration we set 
no restriction. You will not be officially admon- 
ished that your presence is not wanted, and that 
" it is better farther on," or farther off, as was Roger 
Williams even by the Pilgrim fathers, who feared 
to give offense to the inhabitants of the Bay by 
harboring the exile within their borders (Note i); 
nor will you be " warned off of the face of God's 
earth," as was one of the preachers in Massachusetts 
in the last century, who dared to be a Baptist, and 
with the Baptists stand. (Note 2.) 

You stand to-day on historic ground. Not far 
away from this spot, directly east, Roger Williams 
crossed the river with his five companions, and re- 
ceived upon the hither shore the kindly greeting of 



THE MOTHER CHURCH I I 

the aboriginal inhabitants. (Note 3.) Not far 
away from this spot he was baptized by Ezekiel 
Holiman, in the likeness of the Saviour's death, 
and in turn baptized Mr. Holiman and ten others, 
they together making the apostolic number and 
constituting the first church of immersed believers 
in Christ in this new world. (Note 4.) Not far 
aw r ay from this spot, a little to the north, was the 
home of Roger Williams, where he thought and 
planned and prayed to God, and gave utterance to 
those sublime truths which have made his name 
resplendent on the page of history, and where he 
reared his little family amid the hardships and ex- 
posures of the almost unbroken forest ; and not far 
away was the orchard in which his body at last 
found a peaceful resting-place. (Note 5.) 

Not far from this spot those first settlers pro- 
ceeded at once to make "covenantes of peaceable 
neighborhood with all the sachems and natives 
round about," and then, having gained rightful 
ownership of the land, they entered into covenant 
among themselves to establish here, in the immor- 
tal words of their distinguished leader, " a shelter 
for all persons distressed of conscience." (Note 6.) 
And so, not far away from this spot, was founded 
a civil State which protected the rights of con- 
science, which provided that no person should be 
molested, punished, or proscribed, for any differences 
of religious belief, but that perfect freedom should 



12 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

be offered to all persons who chose to come ; and 
here, in this Baptist colony, which for years was the 
object of Puritan scorn and hate, was ordained, for 
the first time in the history of the world, a civil 
government whose corner-stone was absolute soul 
liberty. (Note 7.) 

"In the code of laws established here," says 
Judge Story, "we read for the first time since 
Christianity ascended the throne of the Caesars, the 
declaration that conscience should be free and men 
should not be punished for worshiping God in the 
way they were persuaded he requires." 

It is not claimed that Roger Williams and his 
confreres originated the idea of soul liberty. For 
a hundred years it had been pleading for recog- 
nition in the old world in many voices that were 
silenced only in death. In 1527, more than a cen- 
tury before, the Swiss Anabaptists at Schleitheim 
had formulated and proclaimed their famous Con- 
fession, the first known Confession in the world in 
which liberty of conscience was declared to be the 
indestructible right of all men. In Germany, in 
Holland, and in England, their successors had re- 
iterated their faith, and been sent to the stake for 
it. The fires kindled about the helpless bodies of 
the Anabaptists in these lands are the inextinguish- 
able halo about their names to eyes that have not 
been blurred by the smoke of prejudice. The Gen- 
eral Baptists in London, in 161 1, and the Particular 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 1 3 

Baptists, in 1644, issued their solemn pronunciamen- 
toes, declaring the absolute separation of Church 
and State to be the law of Christ "The magis- 
trate by virtue of his office," they affirmed and re- 
affirmed, "is not to meddle with religion or matters 
of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that 
form of religion ; but to leave the Christian religion 
to the free conscience of any one, and to meddle 
only with political matters. Christ alone is the 
King and Lawgiver of the church and conscience." 
When a distinguished Episcopal prelate in this 
country asserts that Roger Williams was the founder 
of the Baptists, and ascribes to him the origin of 
the denomination, he is simply publishing his gross 
ignorance of the facts of history. There was an 
old world, with its history, its truths, its Confessions, 
its heroes and martyrs, before the Pilgrims landed 
on Plymouth Rock, and before Roger Williams was 
born. Roger Williams was not the beginner of our 
history, but the hero of a new and splendid chap- 
ter. Becoming first a Puritan and then a Separa- 
tist, he allowed his convictions to carry him to their 
logical issue, a thing which the great Reformers did 
not do, and which the Puritans did only in part. 
Before leaving England he was acquainted with the 
language of Holland, which had been consecrated 
to liberal ideas and broader views of human rights, 
for in that land liberty had been for years strug- 
gling for recognition, and had achieved its most 



14 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

conspicuous victories ; and he had been also on 
intimate terms with English Baptists, to one of 
whom, a pastor in London, he paid a noble and 
grateful tribute: "To the everlasting praise of 
Christ Jesus, and of his Holy Spirit, breathing and 
blessing where he listeth, I cannot but with honor- 
able testimony," he wrote in the "Hireling Minis- 
try," "remember that eminent Christian witness and 
prophet of Christ, even that despised and beloved 
Samuel Howe who, being by calling a cobbler and 
without human learning (which yet in its sphere and 
place he honored), who yet, I say, by searching the 
Holy Scriptures grew so excellent a textuary, or 
Scripture-learned man, that few of those high 
rabbis that scorn to mend or make a shoe, could 
aptly or readily from the Scriptures outgo him." 

"If then, while in England," said Dr. William 
Hague, the pastor of this church, at its two hun- 
dredth anniversary, " Roger Williams held friendly 
communings with men of such spirit, who were 
publishing there, at the hazard of reputation and 
property and life, the same principles which have 
since attracted the statesman's eye as he has seen 
them shining among the statutes of this Common- 
wealth, we need be at no loss to conjecture where 
he drew them. He learned them from men who 
derived them from the Bible. The fact is that, 
although in New England he seemed to stand 
alone, there were many in old England with whom 



THE MOTHER CHURCH I 5 

he had common sympathies, who cherished the 
same sentiments, who in some instances suffered 
for them the loss of all things, clung to them under 
galling bondage, and proclaimed them amidst the 
fires of martyrdom." 

Quickly upon his arrival in Boston suspicion was 
aroused against him. He was charged with " Ana- 
baptistry." He was accounted a disturber of the 
peace. The anger of "the Bay bull," which ani- 
mal, according to Dr. H. M. Dexter (Note 8), seems 
to have been chosen the guardian angel of the new 
world's destinies, was hotly kindled, and Roger 
Williams, the advanced Puritan, the Pilgrim of the 
Pilgrims, the ripening freeman, the progressive 
statesman, the new world product of old world 
ideas which there had found limited hospitality, in 
whose mind the leaven of Anabaptism had been 
slowly working, was driven out, and, «in the provi- 
dence of God, became the chief agent in founding 
on this spot the first government in human history 
in which soul liberty was part of its organic law. 
On the shores of the Narragansett, in the person of 
the great founder of this church and this Common- 
wealth, the spirit of Anabaptism (for that was what 
it was) matured at last in clearness of vision, in 
definiteness of purpose and conviction, and in im- 
mortal action, and here, where you now stand, the 
ultimate thought of the New Testament for human 
life and government upon earth was crystallized 



1 6 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

into fact, viz., a free church endowed with spiritual 
life in a free State, built upon human brotherhood 
and the rights of the individual conscience. 

The exact date of the organization of this 
mother church is unknown. The early settlers of 
Providence were, for the most part, religious men, 
and had been members of churches elsewhere. 
They undoubtedly had worship from the first in 
humble form in their humble homes. Though de- 
barred from the fellowship of the men and women 
who claimed a monopoly of the true religion in 
this new world, they still believed in the commun- 
ion of saints. Meetings were held, we are told. 
But many months, possibly two years, passed by 
before any attempt was made to organize the relig- 
ious life into church life. Religious opinion was 
unsettled, and probably far from harmonious. They 
had no common creed. Perhaps no man as yet 
felt quite sure of his own creed. This one thing 
they knew — they were Separatists. Time was 
needed to discover any permanent basis of agree- 
ment or any bond of unity. The baptism of the 
twelve was the first evidence of any attempt at 
organized church life. Their Jordan of baptism 
was their ecclesiastical Rubicon, and at the same 
time their pledge and sign of a new fellowship. 
For the knowledge of this important event, in 
which their separatism culminated and their or- 
ganic union began, we are indebted to Winthrop's 



THE MOTHER CHURCH If 

"Journal," under date of March 16, 1639, which 
contains the earliest authentic record of it. It may 
have taken place a month or a year before the 
record. There was no associated press in those 
days. News moved at slow pace through the 
wilderness. Boston and Providence were a thou- 
sand miles apart. They had little sympathy or 
communication with each other. But this earliest 
record has been accepted generally as the date of 
the origin of the church. The probabilities place 
it at least a year before this, for, as Winthrop says, 
during the previous year, that is between March, 
1637, an d March, 1638, Mrs. Scott, sister of the 
celebrated Mrs. Hutchinson, had gone to Provi- 
dence to live. She, according to Governor Win- 
throp, was "infected with Anabaptistry," and led 
Mr. Williams "to make open profession thereof. " 
His well-known kindly feeling toward the exile 
must have prompted the suggestion that his grave 
heresy was traceable to a cause outside of himself; 
as if Roger Williams was not abundantly competent 
in himself to reach his own conclusions and deter- 
mine his conduct ! 

Who the twelve were who were baptized, we 
cannot be certain, except in the case of Williams 
and Holiman. The Salem Church subsequently 
excommunicated Roger Williams and wife, and 
eight others, viz., John Throgmorton and wife, 
Thomas Olney and wife, Stukely Westcott and 



I 8 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

wife, Mary Holiman and Widow Reeves, all of 
whom except two were said to have been " rebap- 
tized," and all of whom were associated with Wil- 
liams in the settlement of Providence. These 
rebaptized persons and Holiman make nine. Mrs. 
Scott, who seems to have been badly infected with 
Anabaptistry, was undoubtedly also one of the 
number, and her husband, Richard, says that he 
too belonged to the company, which he distinctly 
calls "a church.'' That baptism then, taking place 
whenever it did, in 1639, or 1638, or 1637, was 
the beginning of our organized denominational life 
in this new world. (Note 9.) The elements unhin- 
dered crystallized into the divine form. The relig- 
ious life, having burst through the iron walls of old 
creeds and the solid masoniy of ecclesiastical 
polities and governments, poured itself, like the life 
of primitive Christianity, into the inspired matrix 
and mold. A church after the New Testament 
pattern came into being, born in loneliness and 
exile, but born of the Spirit of God, to human 
appearance self-originated and without lineal de- 
scent or pedigree, untouched by priestly hands, 
unanointed by apostolic grace, and yet a church 
of Jesus Christ, the fruit of the divine seed of the 
kingdom, which had been borne safely across the 
Atlantic on the wind of God's providence and 
planted in the virgin soil of this western conti- 
nent, the beginning of a spiritual harvest which 



THE MOTHER CHURCH I 9 

should wave like the golden fields of autumn and 
spread from ocean to ocean. 

Of that church, Roger Williams, the leading 
spirit, who had previously been invested with min- 
isterial functions, was the accepted teacher and 
minister. It was a very simple affair. The essen- 
tials of church life are exceedingly few and easily 
understood. There was no creed but the Scrip- 
tures, and no ritual but the spontaneous offering of 
prayer and praise, and the familiar unfolding of 
the word of truth. Christ was the center and cir- 
cumference of it all, and the word of Christ was 
the supreme and only rule of church order and 
individual life. This mother church, as you may 
know, has never seen fit to depart in this respect 
from the example of the founders, which was the 
example of the apostles. It has never adopted 
any articles of faith or creedal test, or even any 
formal covenant. The acceptance of Christ as a 
personal Saviour, and loving obedience to his com- 
mands, have been the only qualifications for mem- 
bership. And yet, during a continuous life of 
more than two centuries and a half, it has preserved 
the essential doctrines of grace and the order of the 
gospel in substantial purity and in general agree- 
ment. 

Roger Williams did not remain long in its fellow- 
ship, but withdrew and was henceforth known as a 
Seeker, one of those "who as they looked over 



20 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Christendom and saw the corruptions which gen- 
erally prevailed, concluded the divinely authorized 
ministry of the church had been lost, and that, be- 
fore any could be empowered to administer ordi- 
nances, a new apostleship must be commissioned." 
(Note 10.) He became a consistent high church 
Baptist, and distrusted the validity of his own ordi- 
nation and baptism, as every consistent high- 
churchman must do. He remained, however, in 
sentiment a Baptist, and declared to the end of his 
days that the Baptists were nearer the New Testa- 
ment model than any other branch of the visible 
church of Christ. (Note n.) But the little 
church survived the withrawal of its minister, and 
gradually increased with the slowly increasing com- 
munity. Soon the names of eleven new settlers 
appear upon the town records. Three of them, Chad 
Brown, William Wickenden, and Gregory Dexter, 
became actively identified with the church ; and 
they, with Thomas Olney, one of the constituent 
members, and Pardon Tillinghast, who was ad- 
mitted to citizenship in Providence in 1646, served, 
in turn or together, as its unpaid ministers, for the 
first three-quarters of a century of its existence. 
(Note 12.) 

You do not expect me to trace the life of this, 
our oldest church, through its long and eventful 
history. It is, however, interesting to remember 
that for sixty years it survived without a house of 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 21 

worship, public service being held under the trees 
or in the houses of the people (Note 13), and that 
its first house was built by its minister, Pardon Til- 
linghast, at his own expense (Note 14), and was 
situated on this street (North Main Street), a little 
farther north, being '-in the shape of a hay-cap, 
with a fireplace in the middle, the smoke escaping 
from a hole in the roof." (Note 15.) The wor- 
shipers must have shut their eyes, or have given 
wings to their imagination, to have sung in those 
days such sentiments as these : 

How pleasant, how divinely fair, 
O Lord of hosts, thy dwellings are. 

It is interesting to remember that the first house 
gave way in 1726 to a second, a little more preten- 
tious, it being about forty feet square, which 
served its purpose for nearly fifty years, and that 
this, the third house, was built in 1775, when the 
population, of Providence was but little more than 
four thousand, and was built, as the record says, 
" for the public worship of Almighty God, and also 
for holding commencement in." (Note 16.) It 
is interesting to remember that for one hundred 
and thirty years the ministers of this church, after 
the first pastor, were without special training, and 
conscientiously served without compensation, sup- 
porting themselves and their families by the labor 
of their hands, believing and teaching "that all 



22 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

those who took anything for preaching were like 
Simon Magus" (Note 17); and to remember also 
that for the same period this church was virtually a 
"Six Principle" church, though there was fre- 
quently difference of opinion upon the question, 
and in two instances there were defections by rea- 
son of it. The first was in 1652, led by Thomas 
Olney, one of the ministers, because a majority of 
the church insisted upon the laying on of hands as 
prerequisite to the Communion (Note 1 8) ; and the 
second was in 1771, led by the pastor, Samuel 
Winsor, Jr., for the very opposite reason, because 
the majority of the church voted to abandon its 
adherence to "a doubtful and unessential rite." 
(Note 19.) The question was not finally settled 
until after the present century had opened, when 
Rev. Stephen Gano was pastor. It is said that 
Mr. Winsor was also influenced in his withdrawal 
by the introduction of church music at that time, 
saying that "singing in worship was highly dis- 
gustful to him." 

The coming of Rhode Island College and Presi- 
dent Manning to Providence, in 1770, brought an 
intelligent enlargement to the church, and a pros- 
perity such as it had never known. President 
Manning was at once chosen pastor, upon the 
retirement of Mr. Winsor, and served in that capacity 
for twenty years. From that time the life of the 
church and the life of the university have flowed 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 23 

side by side — rather have intermingled — each giv- 
ing character and strength to the other, as they 
have sought to enrich and ennoble the life of men 
and of the community. 

To-day the mother church (Note 20) looks back, 
after an existence of nearly two hundred and sixty 
years, to her birth in exile, to her early struggles 
and hardships endured for the sake of truth and 
principle and liberty. In addition to her own roll 
of honor, she recalls the names of that eminent 
physician and statesman and minister, John Clarke, 
of Newport, and his companions in tribulation, 
John Crandall and Obadiah Holmes ; of William 
Witter, of Swampscott ; of Thomas Painter, of 
Hingham ; of Henry Dunster, of Harvard College ; 
of Thomas Gould, Thomas Osborne, and John 
George, of the First Baptist Church in Boston ; of 
William Screven, of Kittery, and of many others, 
not only in New England, but out of it, who were 
counted worthy to suffer persecution for Christ's 
sake and the gospel's. She rejoices that these ban- 
ishments, these fines, these imprisonments, these 
cruel whippings, were not endured in vain ; that the 
long, weary, and bitter seed-sowing has yielded a 
harvest of untold blessing to the nation and the 
world ; that through the heroic fidelity of the 
fathers the children have entered upon a glorious 
heritage of exalted privilege and unlimited oppor- 
tunity. 



24 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

To-day the mother church looks out upon the 
prosperous city, with its homes of comfort and 
refinement ; upon the State, with its busy and suc- 
cessful industries and its world-wide commerce ; 
upon the land, with its vast population, its inex- 
haustible resources, its equality in physical power 
and moral influence with the mightiest nations of 
the old world ; and as she sees her daughters, fair 
and beautiful as herself, numerous beyond her 
fondest expectations, free, absolutely free, to wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of an enlight- 
ened conscience and to do his will on the earth, 
equipped with endowed institutions of learning, 
with successful missionary organizations, with mul- 
titudinous Sunday-schools, with an intelligent min- 
istry and a consecrated laity, with the wisdom of 
age and the zeal of an awakened and irrepressible 
youth, whose coming together from year to year is 
as the mustering of a victorious army, she exclaims 
in adoring gratitude : " Verily, verily, what hath 
God wrought!" And she repeats with renewed 
confidence the predictive oracle of Jehovah : The 
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, 
until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The 
sceptre of thy might Jehovah shall stretch forth out 
of Zion, saying, Rule thou in the midst of thine 
enemies. Thy people offer themselves willingly in 
the day that thou warrest, clad in holy vestments. 
As the dew from the womb of the morning [as 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 25 

numerous and beautiful in their holy consecration] 
is to thee the dew of thy young men. 



Note i. Professor William Gammell, in his "Life 
of Roger Williams/ ' says: "It would appear that 
when he fled from Salem, he made his way through 
the forest to the lodges of the Pokanokets, who 
occupied the country north from Mount Hope as 
far as Charles River. Ousemaguin or Massasoit, 
the famous chief of this tribe, had known Mr. 
Williams when he lived in Plymouth, and had often 
received presents and tokens of kindness at his 
hands ; and now in the days of his friendless exile, 
the aged chief welcomed him to his cabin at Mount 
Hope, and extended to him the protection and aid 
he required. He granted him a tract of land on 
the Seekonk River, to which, at the opening of 
spring, he repaired, and where he i pitched and 
began to build and plant/ At this place, also, at 
this time, he was joined by a number of his friends 
from Salem." This was on the east side of the 
river at a beautiful bend, known as Manton's Cove. 
" But scarcely had the first dwelling been raised in 
the new settlement, scarcely had the corn which 
they had planted appeared above the ground, 
when he was again disturbed, and obliged to move 
still farther from Christian neighbors and the dwel- 
lings of civilized men. i I received a letter/ he 
says, ' from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, then 



26 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and 
others' love and respect for me, yet lovingly advis- 
ing me, since I was fallen into the edge of their 
bounds, and they were loth to displease the Bay, to 
remove but to the other side of the water ; and 
then, he said, I had the country before me, and 
might be as free as themselves, and we should be 
loving neighbors together/ " 

Note 2. This was Rev. Hezekiah Smith, d. d., 
first pastor of the Baptist church in Haverhill. 
He had gone to a neighboring town to preach. 
The constable, a man of diminutive size, was 
prompted to go, clothed with the majesty of the 
law, and warn him out of the place. Mr. Smith 
was a man of commanding presence and noble 
bearing. The constable was greatly disconcerted, 
and in his confusion said : " I warn you — off of 
God's earth." " My good sir," said the preacher, 
"where shall I go?" "Go anywhere," was the 
reply; "go to the Isle of Shoals." (Sprague's 
"Annals of the American Baptist Pulpit," p. 102.) 

Note 3. " He accordingly soon abandoned the 
fields which he had planted, and the dwelling he 
had begun to build, and embarked in a canoe upon 
the Seekonk River in quest of another spot, where 
unmolested he might rear a home and plant a sep- 
arate colony. There were five others, who having 
joined him at Seekonk, bore him company in the 
excursion in which he thus went forth to become 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 2*] 

the founder of a city and a State. Tradition has 
handed down among the sons of these earliest citi- 
zens of Rhode Island the course and incidents of 
their singular voyage. As the little bark, thus 
freighted with the fortunes of a future State, was 
borne along on the waters of the Seekonk, Wil- 
liams was greeted by some Indians, from the heights 
that rise on the western banks of the stream, with 
the friendly salutation, ' What cheer, Netop ? 
What cheer? ' and first came to land at the spot 
now called Slate Rock" (Professor Gammell's 
" Life of Roger Williams "). 

Note 4. The fact of the immersion of Roger 
Williams and his associates was never called in 
question until about the year 1880. At that time 
the question w r as raised by Rev. Henry M. Dexter, 
d. D., a Congregationalist, who made several very 
unsuccessful attempts to write Baptist history. 
The question did not arise from any local facts, 
familiar or newly discovered, suggesting doubt as 
to the universally accepted belief. It was solely of 
the nature of an inference from the alleged later 
introduction of immersion among the Baptists of 
England. In 1881 Dr. Dexter published what he 
called "The True Story of John Smyth, the Se- 
Baptist," in which he undertook to prove that im- 
mersion was a new mode of baptism in England, 
introduced about 1641. Had he succeeded in 
proving what he undertook, the inference would 



28 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

have by no means followed, for Roger Williams was 
not dependent upon human precedent, and was 
able to mark out his own course, as was evident in 
other matters. It is frequently forgotten that im- 
mersion, as practised by the Baptists, was not a 
novel idea. The primitive rite has never been 
changed in the Eastern church with its hundred 
millions of adherents, that is, as to form, although 
the rite in that church is not now dependent upon 
an antecedent personal faith in Christ. Immersion 
was also retained in the Western church for many 
centuries, and is known to have been practised in 
England in the sixteenth and even in the seven- 
teenth century, although infant baptism had been 
adopted. According to Dean Stanley, Queen 
Elizabeth and Edward VI. were immersed when 
baptized. Even so late as 1644, a clergyman of 
the Church of England, named Blake, who was 
rector at Tamworth, said : "I have been an eye- 
witness of many infants dipped, and I know it to 
have been the constant practice of many ministers 
in their places for many years together.' ' The 
practice of immersion had not entirely ceased in 
the English cathedrals before it was resumed under 
their very shadow in the form of believers' baptism. 
In 1 6 14 Leonard Busher, of London, wrote : "And 
such as shall willingly and gladly receive the gospel 
he hath commanded to be baptized in the water ; 
that is, dipped for dead in the water." Undoubt- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 29 

edly the Baptists in England were more concerned 
at first about the subjects of baptism than about 
the rite itself, as was the case on the Continent ; 
but the spiritual prerequisite having been accepted 
as scriptural, the rite itself would be gradually con- 
formed to the New Testament norm. Prof. Henry 
C. Vedder speaks carefully when he says : " While 
it is certain that from about 1640 immersion was 
the uniform practice of Baptists, there is every 
reason to believe that it was at least occasionally 
practised among them from the first. That they 
had the idea we know, and practice would naturally 
have followed the idea." The Swiss Anabaptists 
of the previous century had been led in the same 
way. At first rejecting infant baptism and accept- 
ing believers' baptism, they soon conscientiously 
sought to restore the sacred rite to the primitive 
institution in mode and symbolic meaning, and were 
immersed in large numbers on profession of their 
faith in Christ. 

It is altogether certain that immersion was prac- 
tised here and there among the General Baptists 
of England, of whom there were nearly forty con- 
gregations by 1640, for a considerable number of 
years prior to that date. When and by whom it 
was first introduced cannot be told. The intro- 
duction was probably gradual, and the fact that at 
first it was not widely known is not to be wondered 
at. When Edward Barber in 1641 declared that 



30 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

he was " raised up to divulge this glorious truth," 
he was undoubtedly sincere in his statement, but 
we know that his statement was not true. Busher 
had preceded him by twenty-seven years. 

In 1633 the first Particular Baptist church was 
formed in London, by certain persons who with- 
drew from a Separatist congregation, because they 
had come to accept the doctrine of believers' bap- 
tism. According to the so-called Kiffin manu- 
script — though there is some disagreement in the 
quotations from it — the members of this church 
being convinced that baptism "ought to be admin- 
istered by immersion," decided after "sober con- 
ference" among themselves for several months to 
send one of their number, Richard Blount, to Hol- 
land, where they had learned that there were Ana- 
baptists who practised immersion, to receive from 
them scriptural baptism. This they did, " because 
though some in this nation rejected the baptism of 
infants, yet they had not as they knew of, revived 
the ancient custom of immersion." Blount re- 
turned, accompanied by John Batten, the teacher 
of the Holland church, and the members of the 
London church were thereupon immersed. This 
is represented as having taken place in 1641. But 
it would be by no means safe to infer that immer- 
sion was then for the first time practised by the 
Baptists of England. The Particular Baptists 
apparently at that time " revived the ancient cus- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 3 I 

torn of immersion " among themselves, and undoubt- 
edly from that time immersed exclusively. But 
their ignorance as to what had taken place before 
and among other Baptists was no more conclusive 
evidence of the non-existence of the rite than the 
ignorance of Edward Barber. Indeed, we have 
the positive testimony of Dr. Featly, who writing 
in 1644, declared that near his residence the Bap- 
tists had "defiled the rivers with their impure 
washings for more than twenty years." This is the 
language of bitter prejudice, and though his feel- 
ings led him to speak contemptuously of the prac- 
tice of immersion, they would not have been likely 
to tempt him to falsify as to the length of time 
during which he had knowledge of its being con- 
tinued. Such testimony seems conclusive, and 
dates the practice of immersion among English 
Baptists earlier than 1624, or within ten years of 
Busher, and makes it quite certain that he rendered 
obedience to the truth which he believed ancj 
taught. 

Dr. Dexter failed to prove the late introduction 
of immersion among the English Baptists, and the 
inference as to Roger Williams was so unwarranted 
and unreasonable and so contrary to the testimony 
of his contemporaries and all the known facts in 
the case, that it had no influence whatever, and 
has been regarded by most persons as not worthy 
of serious consideration. 



32 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Pres. William H. Whitsitt, of the Southern Bap- 
tist Theological Seminary is, as far as I am aware, 
the solitary exception. Indeed, he now claims the 
honor of having discovered the new historic fact (?) 
and of having suggested the inference as to Roger 
Williams' non-immersion, and of having called the 
attention of Dr. Dexter thereto, and complains of 
the lack of credit. But as he published his opin- 
ions in a Pedobaptist paper anonymously, and at 
about the same time that Dr. Dexter was openly 
publishing the same opinions, and then allowed 
fifteen years to go by before he acknowledged the 
paternity of the anonymous articles, the claim and 
the complaint seem somewhat out of place. In 
an article on the Baptists published in the recent 
edition of Johnson's " New Universal Cyclopaedia,'' 
Professor Whitsitt says of the baptism of Roger 
Williams: "The ceremony was most likely per- 
formed by sprinkling ; the Baptists of England had 
not yet adopted immersion, and there is no reason 
which renders it probable that Williams was in ad- 
vance of them in that regard." It is exceedingly 
unfortunate that an opinion which is merely an 
individual conjecture should have been allowed in 
a popular cyclopaedia to appear in the place of 
established and accredited history, and. in the face 
of it. The contemporaneous and local testimony as 
to the Providence baptism has always been re- 
garded as abundant and convincing. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 33 

Richard Scott and William Coddington, both 
contemporaries of Williams, one a friend and fel- 
low church-member, and the other an enemy, 
speak of him in such a way as to leave no possible 
doubt that his baptism was immersion. Codding- 
ton says : "I have known him about fifty years, a 
mere weathercock, constant only in inconstancy. . . 
One time for water baptism [Coddington had 
become a Quaker when he wrote this], men and 
women must be plunged into the water, and then 
threw it all down again." This refers to his brief con- 
nection with the Baptist church, and his withdrawal 
because he thought the true baptism had been lost 
by reason of the break in the line of succession. 
The language can have no application to any other 
period or act in the life of Williams. Professor 
Albert H. Newman, in a review of Dr. H. M. 
Dexter' s "John Smyth, the Se-Baptist," pub- 
lished in The Examiner in March, 1882, was 
inclined to accept the inference that Williams' 
baptism was sprinking. This he did, as he sub- 
sequently confessed (Examiner, May, 1896), "some- 
what rashly," and " without having specially inves- 
tigated the question." A thorough study of the 
evidence pro and con the immersion theory, com- 
pelled him to retract his hastily accepted view and 
to acknowledge the convincing force of Codding- 
ton's testimony. He also said, " I attach little 
importance to the argument drawn from the fact 

c 



34 ^ HE MOTHER CHURCH 

that the English Baptists had not as yet reached 
the conviction that immersion alone is true bap- 
tism. Williams was quite as likely as any member 
of the Southwark (London) congregation to come 
to an independent conclusion on a point of this 
kind, and was quite as likely to act promptly on 
his convictions. Restraining influences which may 
have delayed action for a number of years in Lon- 
don, were wholly wanting in Providence. That 
primitive baptism was immersion had been freely 
admitted by leading reformers, and immersion was 
the form prescribed in the English Prayer Book. 
A highly educated man like Williams did not need 
the example of English Baptists in a matter of this 
kind." Dr. Newman added that when he had 
reached this conclusion after a thorough investiga- 
tion, he submitted it to Dr. H. M. Dexter, and 
found to his great surprise that he too had been 
led to adopt the same view. " His answer was 
entirely in accord with my own conclusion. He 
expressed the opinion that in the absence of con- 
temporary evidence against immersion, Codding- 
ton's statement must be accepted as probably 
correct." 

When immersion is spoken of in English con- 
troversial publications, bearing date of 1641 and 
1642, as a "new baptism," and one "lately intro- 
duced," these terms must not be interpreted too 
strictly or narrowly. If it had been administered 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 35 

to believers in Christ for a period of ten years, or 
even for twenty-five years, the terms would have 
been accurate. It is abundantly evident that for 
several years in England much and wide thought 
had been given to the form of baptism as well as 
to the proper candidates. The American colonists 
must all have been aware of the discussion that 
was going on, and of the changing views, at least 
in some instances. Rev. Charles Chauncy (subse- 
quently president of Harvard College) arrived at 
Plymouth from England in 1638, and was desired 
as assistant to the pastor of the church there. 
Governor Bradford says of him: " But there fell 
out some difference about baptizing, he holding it 
ought to be by dipping, and putting the whole 
body under water, and that sprinkling was un- 
lawful." The church was willing that he should 
" practice as he was persuaded," if those who 
wished to be " otherwise baptized" could have the 
privilege. To this Mr. Chauncy could not con- 
scientiously agree, and became pastor of the church 
at Scituate, where it is said he found many mem- 
bers who "held to immersion, some to adult im- 
mersion only, and some to immersion of infants as 
well as adults." Felt says of him, July 7, 1642 : 
" Chauncy, at Scituate, still adheres to his practice 
of immersion. He had baptized two of his children 
in this way." If there were no adult immersions 
at Scituate at that early date it must have been 



36 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

because there were no candidates, and certainly 
not because of any lack of faith in the scriptural- 
ness of the rite, or reluctance of disposition. Well 
has Dr. H. S. Burrage asked: u How came Mr. 
Chauncy to hold such an opinion, if immersion 
was unknown among the Baptists of England until 
1 64 1 ? And certainly if Mr. Chauncy, in 1638, 
rejected sprinkling and insisted upon immersion as 
scriptural baptism, why may not Roger Williams 
and his associates at Providence have done the 
same in the following [or possibly the preceding] 
year?" With this condition of religious thought 
on both sides of the Atlantic, why should it be 
thought a thing incredible or improbable that the 
great Rhode Island leader, the independent thinker, 
the conscientious actor, the courageous pioneer, 
should have acted out an interpretation and con- 
viction which he is known to have held ? Any in- 
ference from the supposed or actual tardiness of 
English Baptists to follow their convictions as to 
the non-immersion of Roger Williams, is surely a 
palpable non sequitur, and in the face of explicit 
testimony, like that of Coddington, cannot be en- 
tertained by reasonable historians. 

Strong confirmatory evidence that the Providence 
baptism was immersion, is found in the fact that 
when John Clarke and Mark Lucar are reported as 
first administering baptism, there is no intimation 
of any variance between their practice and the 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 37 

practice that had been instituted in Providence. 
Had the Newport baptism been different from the 
Providence baptism, it is incredible that some 
record of the fact should not have been made. 
The Providence church has never for an instant 
questioned the immersion of its great founder. 
After the withdrawal of Williams for the reasons 
which influenced him to take that step, there arose 
a solicitude in the church as to the validity of the 
baptism originated among themselves, not as to its 
mode ; but the project of sending a representative 
to the old world to receive what could be regarded 
as apostolic baptism by reason of a supposed un- 
broken succession, was soon wisely abandoned, and 
from that day to this the church has remained con- 
tent with the baptism which it received from 
Williams. 

It should be added, moreover, that if Roger 
Williams and his companions were not immersed 
when they were " baptized," we have not the 
slightest intimation as to the time when the change 
was brought about, and immersion was introduced 
into the Baptist church in Providence. A belief, 
therefore, against which not a suspicion was raised 
for two hundred and forty years, and against which 
no evidence whatever has been discovered, but in 
support of which there is the most explicit tes- 
timony contemporaneous with the act itself, and on 
which rests the unbroken history of an existing 



38 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

church, is not likely to be puffed away by the rash 
inference of a fertile imagination. One might as 
reasonably infer that Roger Williams and Ezekiel 
Holiman have only a mythical existence, or that in 
the first half of the seventeenth century there was 
not water sufficient in Narragansett Bay to permit 
the performance of the rite of baptism. Such de- 
structive historical criticism is likely to leave noth- 
ing back of the memory of living men that can be 
looked upon as established and trustworthy, and 
no man can be quite sure of being left in undis- 
turbed possession of what he has seen with his own 
eyes and heard with his own ears. It is prepos- 
terous at this late day for a man to rise up and 
deny, simply on his own authority, the immersion 
of Roger Williams, and call for proof of a fact so 
thoroughly established, and for two and a half cen- 
turies unquestioned. 

Such a student of history is made conspicuous 
by reason of his solitariness. The onus probandi 
clearly rests upon him who says that Williams and 
his companions were " most likely sprinkled.'' Such 
an assertion should be made only on the most in- 
dubitable evidence. 

Note 5. There are preserved in the museum 
of Brown University the roots of an apple tree 
believed to have been nourished by the body of 
Mr. Williams, and also nails from his coffin and 
that of his wife. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 39 

Note 6. Deed of Roger Williams to his asso- 
ciates in 1638 (R. I. Col. Rec, L, 22). 

Note 7. The following instrument stands with- 
out date in the earliest records of the colony, and 
is believed to be the first form of civil government 
adopted by the inhabitants : 

" We whose names are here underwritten, being 
desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do 
promise to submit ourselves, in active or passive 
obedience, to all such orders or agreements as 
shall be made for public good of the body in an 
orderly way, by the major consent of the present 
inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated 
together into a township, and such others as they 
shall admit into the same, only in civil things." 

Note 8. See "As to Roger Williams," p. 119. 

Note 9. " This has been generally regarded as the 
establishment of the first Baptist church in America." 
(See Straus' " Roger Williams," p. 107.) 

Note 10. Rev. John Stanford, acting pastor of 
the church from January, 1788, to September, 
1789, says in "Baptist Annual Register," p 796 : 
" Mr. Williams held his pastoral office about four 
years, and then resigned the same to Mr. Brown 
and Mr. Wickenden, and went to England to 
solicit the first charter." But Governor Winthrop 
and Richard Scott say his connection continued 
only three or four months. Their testimony is 
probably to be accepted. 



40 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Note ii. In a letter to Governor Winthrop, 
under date of Nov. 10, 1649, he says: "I believe 
their practice comes nearer the first practice of our 
great founder, Jesus Christ, than other practices of 
religion do." In a reply to George Fox in 1672, 
only eleven years before his death, he gives expres- 
sion to his unchanged faith in the spiritual nature 
of a church, and the spiritual qualifications for its 
membership and ordinances. " After all my search 
and examinations and considerations, I do profess 
to believe that some come nearer to the first prim- 
itive churches and the institutions and appoint- 
ments of Jesus Christ than others ; as in many 
respects, so in that gallant and heavenly and fun- 
damental principle of the true matter of a Chris- 
tian congregation, flock, or society, namely, actual 
believers, true disciples and converts, living stones, 
such as can give some account how the grace of 
God hath appeared unto them." In 1645 he pub- 
lished in London a treatise entitled " Christenings 
Make not Christians." His views were radical at 
that time, and thoroughly scriptural, as Baptists 
believe. 

Note 12. "It is very difficult to determine their 
terms of service, or how far each was recognized as 
pastor. Two or three seem to have been elders at 
the same time" ( " History of the First Baptist 
Church in Providence, 1639-1877," prepared by 
Rev. S. L. Caldwell, d. d., and Prof. William Gam- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 41 

mell). Rev. C. E. Barrows, d. d., in the " History 
of the First Baptist Church in Newport," says that 
that church had elders " besides a pastor," and gives 
the names of three. It is, however, probable, if 
not certain, that Dr. Barrows was misled by the 
record of the election of " three elders" to be 
assistants to William Coddington in the govern- 
ment of the new colony. They were not called 
elders of the church. Their office seems to have 
been purely a civil one. But in Providence there 
was undoubtedly a plurality of elders in the 
church, and the descendants of each elder have 
claimed that their ancestor stood next to Roger 
Williams in the pastorate. The office could not 
have involved much labor or any cessation from 
secular employment. They shared the responsi- 
bility of the spiritual oversight of the little church. 
In the Second Baptist Church of Newport, how- 
ever, as late as the first quarter of the eighteenth 
century, there was a triple pastorate. James 
Clarke, a nephew of Dr. John Clarke, was ordained 
as pastor in 1 700, at the age of fifty-one, he hav- 
ing been previously a cooper by trade. In 1704 
Daniel Wightman was ordained as associate pastor 
with Mr. Clarke, and in 1729 Rev. John Comer, 
having become a Six Principle Baptist, resigned the 
pastorate of the First Church, and became also 
associate pastor of the Second Church. He served, 
however, but two years. They were all pastors at 



42 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

the same time. It was in that year (1729) that 
Dean Berkeley described the divided religious con- 
dition of Newport in these words : " Here are four 
sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, 
Independents, and many of no profession. Not- 
withstanding so many differences, here are fewer 
quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people 
living peaceably with their neighbors of whatever 
persuasion. The town of Newport contains about 
six thousand souls, and is the most thriving in all 
America for bigness." 

Note 13. " For over sixty years religion was 
here, the church was here, but with no house of its 
own. It found such shelter as it could in open 
spaces and under trees, when skies w r ere fair ; in 
such houses as could give it hospitality, when driven 
in by the weather. There was no public building 
in the town even for civil purposes. After Philip's 
War, in June, 1676, the annual town meeting was 
held ' before Thomas Field's house, under a tree 
by the waterside.' " (" Discourse in the First Bap- 
tist Meeting House on the Ninetieth Anniversary of 
its Dedication, May 28, 1865," by the pastor, Rev. 
S. L. Caldwell, d. d.) 

Note 14. Not only did he serve the church 
without charge, but in a noble and generous spirit, 
in the year 1 700, he built a meeting-house for it 
on a lot near the corner of North Main and Smith 
Streets. "In 171 1, seven years before his death, 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 43 

he made a free gift of a deed of the house and 
land to the church." (Discourse by Dr. Caldwell.) 

Note 15. Knowles' " Life of Roger Williams," 
p. 175. 

Note 16. This house was dedicated on May 28, 
1775, President James Manning preaching the ser- 
mon on the occasion. It is modeled from a draw- 
ing made for the Church of St. Martin's-in-the 
Fields, near Charing Cross, London, contained in 
Gibbs'- " Designs of Buildings and Ornaments." 
James Gibbs was a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. 
The cost of land and building w T as a little over 
,£7,000, "lawful money," or about $35,000. Of 
this amount ,£2,000 was raised by lottery, a bill 
having been granted by the General Assembly at 
the June session, 1774. 

The steeple was furnished with a bell weighing 
two thousand five hundred and fifteen pounds, cast 
in London, and bearing this quaint inscription : 

For freedom of conscience the town was first planted, 
Persuasion, not force, was used by the people : 

This church is the eldest and has not recanted, 
Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple. 

In England the chapels of dissenters were not 
allowed to have either spire or bell. The bell was 
broken in ringing, and recast in 1787. It then re- 
ceived a new inscription, viz. : "This church was 
formed a. d. 1639, the first in the State, and the 



44 TH E MOTHER CHURCH 

oldest of the Baptists in America.' ' It was again 
broken and recast in March, 1 844, and a third time 
in September of the same year. Its present in- 
scription is as follows : " This church was founded 
in 1639 by Roger Williams, its first pastor, and the 
first asserter of liberty of conscience. It was the 
first church in R. L, and the first Baptist church in 
America.' ' The bell is still rung daily at sunrise, 
at noon, and at 9 p. m. 

The building is eighty feet square, with projec- 
tions in front and in the rear, and has entrances on 
the four sides. At first the pews were square, and 
the two principal aisles crossed each other at right 
angles in the center of the house. In 1792 the 
beautiful crystal chandelier, the gift of Mrs. Hope 
Ives, the daughter of Nicholas Brown, was placed 
in the audience room. In 1832 the sounding- 
board was removed, the pulpit lowered, and the top 
gallery at the west end, which was devoted to the 
use of colored people, was taken aw T ay and an 
organ introduced. The interior of the house has 
been several times renovated, modernized, and better 
fitted for the needs of the church, but the archi- 
tectural proportions remain undisturbed. Nearly 
four generations have worshiped under its roof. 
It stands as a beautiful specimen of the church 
architecture of the eighteenth century, a highly 
prized landmark in the city, and the pride of those 
who make it their religious home. (See "Address 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 45 

by Hon. Samuel Greene Arnold at the One Hun- 
dredth Anniversary of the Opening of the Meeting 
House," delivered May 28, 1875.) 

Note 17. Governor Jenckes, writing in 1730, 
says, however, of Pardon Tillinghast : "He did sev- 
eral times in his teaching declare that it was the 
duty of a church to contribute toward the main- 
tenance of their elders, who labored in the word 
and doctrine of Christ ; and although, for his part, 
he would take nothing, yet it remained the church's 
duty to be performed to such as might succeed 
him" (Backus, Vol. II., p. 114). 

Note i 8. There is some difference of opinion as 
to the original attitude of the church in reference 
to the practice of laying on of hands. The state- 
ment of Morgan Edwards, made in 1770, is prob- 
ably correct : "At first laying on of hands was held 
in a lax manner, so that they who had no faith in 
the rite were received without it, and such (saith 
Joseph Jenks) was the opinion of the Baptists in 
the first constitution of their churches throughout 
this colony." Again he says: "Some divisions 
have taken place in this church. The first was 
about the year 1654, on account of laying on of 
hands. Some were for banishing it entirely, among 
which Rev. Thomas Olney was the chief, who with 
a few more withdrew and formed themselves into a 
distinct church, distinguished by the name of Five 
Point Baptists, and the first of the name in the 



46 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

province. It continued in being to 171 5, when Mr. 
Olney resigned the care of it, and soon after it 
ceased to exist." [This must have been Thomas 
Olney, Jr., who was also an elder, and died in 
1722. The father died in 1682.] 

Mr. Edwards followed Stephen Hopkins, Gov- 
ernor of Rhode Island and signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, Rev. John Callender, the Newport 
pastor, who delivered his famous " Historical Dis- 
course" in 1738, and many others. This view has 
been generally accepted. Rev. John Comer, also 
a Newport pastor, in a manuscript diary written 
about 1730 1 , appears to have regarded the Six 
Principle church, under Mr. Brown, Mr. Wicken- 
den, and Mr. Dexter, as the seceding church. Cal- 
lender, who has been called "a man of wonderful 
attainments and accuracy," and whose " Historical 
Discourse" was preached eight years later than 
Comer, reviewing the whole matter, took the oppo- 
site view. Backus (Vol. I., p. 405) speaks of 
" those who parted from their brethren about the 
year 1653, under the leading of Elder Wicken- 
den," and seems to coincide with Mr. Comer, 
though the language probably means simply that 
there was a separation. He does not hesitate to 
call the first church in Providence "The first Bap- 
tist church in America," and speaks of the Olney 

1 This diary was published in 1894 by the American Baptist Pub- 
lication Society. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 47 

faction not as the church, but as "a part of the 
church." Rev. Samuel Adlam, in a pamphlet which 
appeared in 1850, followed Mr. Comer. He was 
pastor of the First Church in Newport w r hen he 
published his views. 

Rev. Thomas Armitage, d. d. (" History of Bap- 
tists," p. 667), says : 

It seems clear from the statements of the most reliable 
historians that the first warm contention on the subject 
at Providence was between Wickenden and Olney, as to 
whether the point of being ■ ' under hands ' ' should be made 
a test of fellowship ; that Olney went out, that Wickenden 
and Brown remained with the old church, and that in that 
body, according to Callender, laying on of hands prevailed, 
and held its own till the days of Manning, when it ceased 
to be a test of membership, and gradually died out. 

Rev. H. S. Burrage, d. d., in " History of Bap- 
tists in New England," p. 28, takes the same view. 
He says : " Mr. Olney's party withdrew from the 
church, and maintained a separate existence until 
about 1 718. 

Rev. S. L. Caldwell, d. d., in a discourse preached 
at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
church (1889), says : 

The fanciful theory that in this movement of Olney the 
historic continuity of the church was disrupted, and we lost 
our antiquity and our primacy, goes to pieces on the facts. 
Just as well say the church lost its previous history, when 
in 1 77 1 Winsor and his associates went out for a reason just 



4-3 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

opposite to that which led out Olney and his dissenters. 
In both cases the church lived and continued and survived 
the schism. 

There has been no difference of opinion as to 
the fact of a division in the church in 1652, 1653, 
or 1654, or as to the cause of the division. The 
main question to be answered is, what was the pre- 
vailing sentiment in the church, before the division, 
on the point in discussion ? The answer to that 
will enable us to determine which part of the church 
seceded. A second question, the answer to which 
cannot be doubtful is, would a division of the church, 
in such circumstances and on such grounds, in any 
way inhibit the surviving part of the church from 
claiming to be the church, and dating its origin at 
the beginning of the original church ? 

Mr. Comer's language, as quoted by Dr. Armi- 
tage, is as follows : " Mr. William Vaughn [a mem- 
ber of the First Baptist Church in Newport], finding 
a number of Baptists in the town of Providence, 
lately joined together in special church covenant, 
in the faith and practice, under the inspection of 
Mr. Wiggington [Wickenden], being heretofore 
members of the church under Mr. Thomas Olney 
of that town, he, that is, Mr. William Vaughn, went 
thither in the month of October, 1652, and sub- 
mitted thereto (the laying on of hands), whereupon 
he returned to Newport, accompanied with Mr. 
William Wiggington and Mr. Gregory Dexter/ ' 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 49 

This act led to the formation of the Second Baptist 
Church in Newport, in 1656. Mr. Comer's record 
was made more than seventy-five years after the 
event. The announcement that a part of the 
church in Providence, which was said indiscrimi- 
nately to be under the care of Olney or Wicken- 
den, Dexter or Brown, had openly put itself on 
Six Principle ground, would have been a sufficient 
cause for the visit of Mr. Vaughn, who had been 
led to sympathize with that view. Mr. Comer in- 
ferred that the Wickenden church was the seceding 
church, and hence was unable rightfully to claim 
an origin prior to the separation. 

The only advocates of this view in the North 
have been two or three pastors of the First Church 
in Newport, the priority of which would be secured 
by its adoption. Prof. Henry C. Vedder (" A Short 
History of the Baptists," p. 155) thinks the ques- 
tion a difficult one to settle. He says "Whether 
the First Baptist Church of Providence is the lineal 
successor of this church founded by Roger Wil- 
liams is a difficult historical question, about which 
a positive opinion should be expressed with diffi- 
dence. Tradition maintains that the line of succes- 
sion has been unbroken ; but the records to prove 
this are lacking." All other Baptist historians 
either declare the Olney party to be the seceding 
church, or accepting the language of Mr. Comer, 
do not see that it affects at all the question of the 



50 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

priority of the existing First Church in Providence. 
It is difficult to say how much the landmarker 
spirit among the Southern Baptists, which would 
deny the validity of the baptism of Roger Wil- 
liams, and of course that of his successors, because 
he was baptized by an unbaptized person, has had 
to do with the disposition in certain quarters of late 
to give the priority to the Newport church. 

In reference to the attitude of the church prior 
to the division, it may be said that there is positive 
evidence from his writings that Roger Williams held 
to the laying on of hands as a fitting sequel to 
baptism and a rite of equal importance and sacred- 
ness. His view found expression in his " Bloody 
Tenet," " Bloody Tenet, yet More Bloody," and 
''Hireling Ministry." These works were published 
between 1643 an d 1652, all of them before the 
division in the church took place. How early 
Roger Williams adopted the view it is impossible 
to determine, probably some years before 1643. 
Knight, in his " History of the Six Principle Bap- 
tists," calls him "the parent and founder" of that 
denomination. This is unquestionably an over- 
statement, for it is not known that he was active in 
spreading the rite and winning adherents to it. 
The principal men, however, associated with him, 
with the single exception of Olney, held the same 
view. When the schism occurred, Brown, Wick- 
enden, and Dexter were all opposed to Olney, and 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 5 I 

undoubtedly the majority of the church were with 
them, and would not naturally be called the seced- 
ing party. Comer's statement, which undoubtedly 
was based upon hearsay testimony, does not seem 
to be in harmony with the known attitude of the 
original church. 

Pardon Tillinghast, who was admitted to citizen- 
ship in Providence in 1646, at least six years before 
the defection occurred, and who was connected 
with the church as private member or pastor for 
seventy-two years, until his death in 171 8, must 
have been perfectly acquainted with the character 
of the church from the beginning. In his deed to 
the church, in 171 1, of the meeting-house which he 
had built at his own expense (Record of Deeds, 
Vol. XII., p. 260), the language reads, " My house, 
called the Baptist meeting-house." There was no 
other meeting-house, and as we know, there had 
been no other. The church worshiping in it had 
evidently maintained its original name and primacy 
as the Baptist church. Its doctrinal position is 
made known by the following memorandum, which 
appears at the end of the deed. 

Memorandum. Before the engrossing hereof I do de- 
clare, that whereas it is above mentioned to wit, "to the 
church and their successors in the same faith and order," 
I do intend by the words ' ' same faith and order, ' ' such as 
do truly believe and practice the six principles of the doc- 
trine of Christ mentioned Heb. 6 : 2, such as after their 



52 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

manifestation of repentance and faith, are baptized in water 
and have hands laid on them. Signed 

Pardon Tillinghast, 
mark of 
Lidia L. Tillinghast. 

The practice of laying on of hands was intro- 
duced among the Baptists of England and Wales 
about the year 1646, according to Evans' " Early 
English Baptists/' and prevailed quite extensively. 
It was the result of a conscientious re-examination 
of the New Testament to ascertain the constitution 
of the primitive church and the requirements of 
the gospel. In their extreme conscientiousness 
and care to omit nothing required, some of them 
went so far as to practise feet-washing. Knight 
says: " When professors found themselves at liberty, 
during the confusions caused by the civil wars, to 
read the Scriptures and act for themselves, several 
of the General Baptists, as well as others, esteem- 
ing the example and precepts of Christ to be bind- 
ing on all his followers, conscientiously practised 
the washing of each other's feet as a religious insti- 
tution." So it was that every symbolic act came 
to be regarded as of the nature of a permanent 
ordinance of Christianity. 

Nearly all of the early Baptist churches in New 
England were Six Principle, entirely or in part. 
In 1729 thirteen churches met in annual association 
in Newport, all of them Six Principle. There were 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 53 

only five other Baptist churches at that date north 
of New Jersey, so Backus informs us, and two of 
these were Seventh Day. The First Church in 
Providence was soon after its organization evidently 
divided on the practice of laying on of hands, with 
an increasing sentiment in its favor. At length the 
church as a body adopted it — those who could not 
agree joining w r ith Mr. Olney in another organiza- 
tion — and, in the words of Dr. Caldwell, ''kept it, 
with more or less questioning over it, for consider- 
ably over a century, until the arrival of a new and 
happier and more liberal period in its history." 
Moreover, the church has always been claimed by 
the Six Principle Baptists as in sympathy with 
their views in all its early years from its origin. 
Knight, their historian, writing in 1827, the last 
year of the pastorate of Rev. Stephen Gano, says : 
"This has been a large, respectable, flourishing 
church, almost from its first establishment. It was 
settled upon, and constantly maintained the six 
principles of the doctrine of Christ, until their 
present pastor received the pastoral charge, since 
which they have renounced the imposition of hands 
on private members, and inclined to Calvinism, 
though many of the members are still in sentiment 
as formerly." 

The simple facts, then, evidently are that from 
the beginning, or very soon after, there was in the 
church a strong sentiment in favor of laying on 



54 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

of hands. In 1652-54 it triumphed, the church 
was divided, and the members henceforth walked 
in two bodies. But the question which was the 
seceding body, if such a question remains, does 
not seem to be one of very serious moment. Both 
branches remained Baptist churches. The point 
of difference was a minor one. The tree parted in 
two branches, and the branch which survived would 
inherit rightfully and inevitably the life and histoiy 
of the original church, and the continuity remain 
unbroken. 

Rev. A. H. Newman, d. d. (" History of Baptist 
Churches in the United States," p. 87), says : " As 
there was nothing whatever in the way of a church 
building, nor anything the possession of which 
would identify the party possessing it with the 
original church to the exclusion of a like claim on 
the part of the opposite party, it seems futile to 
base an argument for the priority of another 
church on the supposition that one of these parties 
rather than the other was the original church, and 
that this original church afterward became extinct.' ' 

The minor nature of the difference between the 
two branches will appear, when the histoiy of the 
Second Baptist Church in Newport is recalled. It 
was organized in 1656, on the Six Principle basis^ 
and was composed of twenty-one members, who 
withdrew from the First Church. For a long 
period of years it affiliated with the Six Principle 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 55 

Baptists. In 1801 it united with the Warren Asso- 
ciation, and so continues. In a " Historical 
Sketch" of the church, prepared in 1886, the 
writer says: "The practice of laying hands on 
baptized converts is continued unto this day, partly 
out of regard for an old custom, because there is 
something in it that appears pleasing and appropri- 
ate, and because the church holds property given 
in the name of the 'six principles,' and it is sup- 
posed that this ' rite of confirmation ' so called, 
secures the right of administration upon those 
bequests." (See Minutes of Warren Association 
for 1886.) This practice is no barrier to full fellow- 
ship with churches which formerly would have been 
called "Five Point" Baptist churches. The Six 
Principle churches have been gradually disappear- 
ing for many years, those members who are not 
taken away by death generally joining other Bap- 
tist churches. Knight says : " In the revival and 
spread of the Calvinistic Baptists, a great part of 
those churches by degrees fell in with their views, 
and united with them." He is speaking of the 
more Southern churches. What he says is true 
also of the New England churches, especially since 
the beginning of the present century. 

Rev. C. Edwin Barrows, d. d,, in "The Diary 
of John Comer," edited by him and Dr. J. W. 
Willmarth ("Collections of the Rhode Island Histor- 
ical Society," Vol. VIII.,) says, in Note 119, of the 



56 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Six Principle churches : " Many of them were dis- 
solved, and others became Calvinistic in doctrine 
and renounced the laying on of hands, at least as 
a necessary prerequisite to the communion." And 
Dr. J. W. Willmarth, in a note in the same volume, 
p. 1 20, says of the old Philadelphia Baptist Associa- 
tion : 

The churches of that body held the ' ■ Calvinistic doc- 
trine ' ' with great tenacity, and also practised the ■ ' imposi- 
tion of hands." This ancient custom has gone out of use, 
in the course of time, among American Baptists, except in 
a few churches. It has been superseded by the "right 
hand of fellowship" [or "of welcome"]. In a few 
churches the old practice is still retained. They do not 
make it a "term of communion," or a subject of conten- 
tion with their brethren, but are unwilling to abandon a rite 
which seems to them so scriptural and so significant of the 
gift of the Holy Spirit promised to the believer. With some 
of these the "hand of fellowship" follows. Others con- 
sider this unnecessary, there being no scriptural authority 
for it, so far as newly baptized converts are concerned ; 
while the "laying on of hands," accompanied by solemn 
prayer, seems to them far superior in meaning and impres- 
siveness. The "imposition" or "laying on of hands" is 
now practised by the Second and Roxborough Baptist 
Churches of Philadelphia, and until recently also by the 
Lower Merion Baptist Church, in the vicinity of Philadel- 
phia. It is retained in the Second Baptist Church of New- 
port, which has now nothing else in common with the ■ ' Six 
Principle Baptists," but is in fellowship with the regular 
Baptists of Rhode Island. Whether the practice is found 
now in any other regular Baptist churches in the Philadel- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 57 

phia Association or elsewhere in America, I cannot say. 
But if we may judge from the Philadelphia Confession of 
Faith, and from notices in this diary and elsewhere, it was 
once a part of acknowledged order among regular Ameri- 
can Baptists generally, and was by no means peculiar to the 
"Six Principle Baptists," whose sentiments were Arminian, 
and (I suppose) are so still. I am free to say that I wish 
the ancient custom could be restored in all our Baptist 
churches. 

Note 19. Between the defection in 1652 and the 
defection in 1771 there was by no means unanimity 
in the church in reference to the practice of lay- 
ing on of hands. There were always a stricter party 
and a more liberal party. The church was nomi- 
nally Six Principle, and sent delegates to the Annual 
Association and entertained the Association in its 
turn, the other places of entertainment being prin- 
cipally Swansea and Newport. During this period 
the church undoubtedly administered the rite to all 
persons who were received to membership. But 
there was constant difference of opinion as to 
whether or not it should be demanded in all cases 
as a prerequisite to communion. Some went so 
far as to insist that a person coming to the commun- 
ion must not only have been " under hands " him- 
self, but must look upon the rite as so sacred and 
obligatory as to demand it in all other commu- 
nicants, as they demanded scriptural baptism. 
They allowed not only no liberty of action on the 
part of the communicant, but no liberality of be- 



58 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

lief in his mind in reference to others. Others 
were broader in their views, and would make the 
omission of the rite no barrier to communion in the 
case of baptized believers. About the year 1730, 
under the ministry of Elder James Brown, a grand- 
son of Chad Brown, there was a " woeful breach or 
division,' ' in which the leading men in the church 
were involved. The pastor took the more liberal 
view. The opponents were led by Samuel Win- 
sor, Sr., who was then a deacon. An account of 
this controversy is given in Guild's " Manning and 
Brown University," p. 153. It was settled after 
more than two years of warm discussion by a con- 
cession to the stricter party in the interests of peace. 
The agreement was signed by twenty-four names, 
including the pastor and the deacon, under date of 
May 25, 1732, and contains these words: 

The difference between us is this, that some of us have 
borne with larger communion than others. We shall en- 
deavor, by the help of God, not to offend our brethren in 
this thing, nor any thing whereby it shall offend their con- 
sciences, but shall endeavor to be a building up of peace 
and tranquillity within the spiritual walls of Jerusalem. . . 
So we ought to be of one body, and not tearing one another 
to pieces. 

The church was not disrupted at this time. But 
the controversy was not settled. The issue was 
only postponed. The liberal spirit grew from year 
to year, and the coming of President Manning to 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 59 

Providence and to the church hastened the end of 
a strife that had vexed the church from the begin- 
ning. President Manning had been under hands. 
This fact was stated in the church letter which he 
brought to Rhode Island. But it was known that 
he was not strict in his interpretation of the rite, 
and the question of his communing with the 
church brought on the long-delayed crisis. Rev. 
Samuel Winsor, Jr., had been pastor for many 
years. His home was in the country, several miles 
from the church. His health was feeble and his 
flock was scattered. He had frequently asked to 
be relieved from the pastoral responsibility. In 
the judgment of the people President Manning's 
presence made it possible to grant the pastor's re- 
quest. Moreover, the meagreness of the resources 
of the infant college made it necessary for the 
president to have some other means of support, 
as he had had at Warren. The indications of 
God's providence seemed very plain, and the re- 
sults have given abundant proof of the wisdom of 
the action that was taken. Dr. Guild in " Man- 
ning and Brown University," p. 178, thus describes 
the action of the church : 

The settlement of Dr. Manning in Providence was hailed 
by the church as a happy event, supposing, as they did, 
that by calling him to be their pastor they could carry into 
effect the wishes of Mr. Winsor. He was at once invited 
to occupy the pulpit. He accepted the invitation, and 



60 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

preached a sermon on a Sunday which happened to be the 
day for the administration of the Lord' s Supper. Several 
of the members of the church were, however, dissatisfied 
that "the privilege of transient communion" should have 
been allowed to Dr. Manning ; believing that he held the 
doctrine of imposition of hands rather too loosely, and that 
he practised it more to accommodate the consciences of 
others than to meet the demands of his own. This dissatis- 
faction led to the formation of a party, and to a series of 
church meetings, in which the majority, however, was 
found in every instance to be on the side of Manning. 
With this party Mr. Winsor himself sympathized and acted. 
This, however, was thought by some to be only ■ ■ the osten- 
sible reason" of dissatisfaction with Mr. Manning. The 
true cause of opposition to him was "his holding to sing- 
ing in public worship, which was highly disgustful to Mr. 
Winsor." . . Finally, Mr. Winsor, in April, 1771, pre- 
sented to the church a writing, signed by a number of the 
members, stating that they were in conscience bound to 
withdraw from such as did not "hold strictly to the six 
principles of the doctrine of Christ as laid down in Heb. 
6 : 1, 2." 

That it may be seen that there is no difference 
of opinion as to which was the seceding party, and 
how the secession was brought about, it may be 
well to quote from Knight, the historian of the 
Six Principle Baptists. He says in his "History," 
P- 257: 

Elder James Manning, president of Rhode Island College, 
was about to remove from Warren to Providence, and Dan- 
iel Jenks and Solomon Drown, Esqs., were appointed at 
their church meeting held in May, 1770, to wait on Mr. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 6 1 

Manning on his arrival, and invite him to preach in the 
meeting-house. Mr. Manning accepted, and delivered a 
sermon on communion day, and was invited to partake with 
them, which he did, which caused dissatisfaction in a num- 
ber of members, on account of Mr. Manning' s not holding 
strictly to laying on of hands. Although under hands him- 
self, yet he was willing to commune with those that were 
not. A church meeting was appointed in order for recon- 
ciliation, and by a vote of the majority present, Mr. Man- 
ning was admitted to their communion and transient com- 
munion allowed. The dissatisfaction continued and in- 
creased, whereupon another meeting was called previous to 
their next communion, to endeavor to reconcile their diffi- 
culties, when Mr. Manning was again voted to the privilege 
of their communion. At the next church meeting Elder 
Winsor and a large number of brethren laid their grievance 
before the church, which was that Elder Manning received 
those to communion not under hands. They agreed to refer 
the matter to the next Association, to be held at Swanzey ; 
but when the case was laid before that body, they concluded 
that the church must settle it themselves. At the next 
church meeting in October the difficulty was taken up, and 
determined by vote as heretofore, after which Elder Winsor 
declined to administer the sacrament on account of the dis- 
satisfaction of brethren. In April following, Elder Winsor 
presented a paper to the church meeting, signed by a large 
number of members, as follows : ' ' Brethren and Sisters : 
We must in conscience withdraw ourselves from all those 
who do not hold strictly to the six principles of the doctrine 
of Christ as laid down in Heb. 6 : i, 2." 

After this a final separation took place, and 
eighty-seven members, including Elder Winsor and 
Deacon John Dyer, were organized into a separate 



62 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

church in Johnston. It should be said that many 
of these members did not come from the First 
Church in Providence. 

Johnston was three miles distant. The line of 
division was drawn, for the most part, between the 
Providence members and the country members, 
though a few in Providence sympathized with the 
departing brethren. As the former church prop- 
erty had been deeded by Parson Tillinghast to 
those who should adhere to Six Principle views, 
an amicable financial adjustment was agreed upon, 
and the church in Providence was left in posses- 
sion of the property, the field, the history, and the 
traditions of the church, the lineal successor of the 
church founded by Roger Williams. This was ac- 
knowledged by both parties. The call extended 
to President Manning to be pastor reads : "At a 
meeting of the members of the old Baptist Church 
in Providence, in church meeting assembled this 
31st day of July, 1771, Daniel Jenckes, Esq., mod- 
erator : Whereas, Elder Samuel Winsor, now of 
Johnston, has withdrawn himself and a consider- 
able number of members of this church from their 
communion with us who live in town," etc. 

Knight puts the date of the origin of the John- 
ston church as 1 771, and in his "History" (1827), 
still lists the Providence church with the Six Princi- 
ple churches ; and places the date of its beginning 
as 1636, the year of Roger Williams' arrival in 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 63 

Providence. He may have hoped even at that late 
day that the Six Principle leaven would reassert its 
power and become again a controlling element in 
the church. There was no disposition to deny the 
validity of its claim to be the original church. The 
records of the Johnston church began with 1771. 

The controversy did not end with the call of 
President Manning. Traces of it remained well into 
the first quarter of the present century to trouble 
the pastor, and on one occasion he is reported to 
have placed his resignation in the hands of the 
church to bring the matter to its final issue. Such 
tenacity of life reveals the conscientiousness of 
those who looked upon the practice as an enact- 
ment of Jesus Christ 

The character of the church and the changes 
brought about in it by the coming of President 
Manning to Providence, are set forth in a most in- 
teresting manner in the following extract from a 
letter by Moses Brown to President Wayland. The 
letter is dated, " Providence, 25th of 5th month, 
1833," and is found entire in Guild's " History of 
Brown University/ ' pp. 207-210. Mr. Brown was 
then in his ninety-fifth year. He says : 

I conclude to give thee my own knowledge respecting the 
changes and alterations in the Baptist church in this town, 
which was in very early time known by the name of Six 
Principle Baptist. In proof of this, I have an original 
letter of Elder Pardon Tillinghast, signed by himself, 



64 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Gregory Dexter, and Aaron Davis, in behalf of the breth- 
ren of the church in this town, dated in the 5th month, 
then July, 1681 ; and this is confirmed by Elder Tilling- 
hast' s deed of the Baptist meeting-house and lot to the 
church. . . Indeed, the difference is marked between the 
old church of the Baptists in this town and after Elder Man- 
ning, a worthy godly man and an excellent preacher, whom 
I attended in his last moments, and whom we all loved. In 
divers respects, however, his practice was different from the 
church here, and much difficulty was in the meeting upon 
the subject of singing and the contribution box, these being 
never known before. To give a vote of the church in favor 
of the first more particularly, the female members were 
called upon to vote, though not usual, and my mother and 
sister attended accordingly. This occasioned a serious di- 
vision with the old deacons and members. Elder Manning 
having powerful aid from some of the old members, and 
being prudent enough to keep himself out of the strife, 
preserved the affection most generally of the church. At 
length a separation was concluded on, the meeting-house 
and lot were sold, the money was divided, the meeting- 
house in Johnston on the plain was built, and also the 
house now called the First Baptist. My brother Joseph was 
a member of the church, and when he brought his contri- 
bution box to my mother' s pew, I now remember my re- 
luctant feelings for him, our family and the church never 
having seen the like in our meeting, though often in the 
Congregational and other churches. 

The question may suggest itself, to what extent 
a church may modify its belief or practice, and 
still retain its identity. There are Unitarian 
churches in New England which have, back of 
their Unitarian life and present denominational fel- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 65 

lowship, a century or a century and a half of Congre- 
gational life and history. They can hardly be said 
to have retained their ecclesiastical identity, or to 
be in any just sense the lineal descendants of the 
original churches ; and yet they claim as their own 
the life and history of the past, and date their ori- 
gin at the beginning of the original church life, and 
this claim is unquestioned. The Unitarian church 
worshiping in King's Chapel, Boston, w r as origi- 
nally an Episcopal church, but has abandoned the 
faith and government of the original church, and 
yet calls itself the survivor and inheritor of the 
past. The John Bunyan Church in Bedford is to- 
day an Independent or Congregational church, re- 
taining the name and the memorials of the im- 
mortal allegorist, and inheriting all the treasured 
wealth of the history of the church to which he 
ministered. Other similar instances might be cited. 
But the First Baptist Church in Providence has 
passed through no such changes in faith or practice. 
It has never ceased to be a Baptist church from the 
beginning of its history down to the present hour. 
During all the difference of opinion and protracted 
discussion about the rite, which received recog- 
nition in many Baptist churches in England and 
America during the last half of the seventeenth 
and the whole of the eighteenth century, it pre- 
served unchanged the evangelical faith, the con- 
gregational polity and discipline, and the scriptural 



66 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

ordinances. In each instance of defection the ma- 
jority of the church remained to carry forward the 
life, the work, and the history of the church, and 
to preserve its continuity without break or interrup- 
tion. The church has never, for a single instant, 
lost its existence or its identity. 

It has not, indeed, either at the beginning or 
since, adopted any articles of faith, or put forth 
any creedal statement. The circumstances of its 
origin were exceptional, and must not be taken as 
a guide for to-day. Amid the multitude of relig- 
ious faiths in our time, all claiming to rest upon the 
word of God, a church needs to have some basis 
of agreement, though it may be slight, on which its 
members may unite, and by which it may be known 
and distinguished. Fellowship and recognition by 
those outside can be secured only by some definite 
expression of belief. A church must stand for 
something, if it is to have either growth or ecclesi- 
astical fellowship. Yet the old First Church has 
held its faith, and borne its name, in such a way 
that its position has never been misunderstood, and 
when it united with the recently organized Warren 
Association in 1782, under the guidance of Presi- 
dent Manning, and entered into fellowship with 
other Baptist churches, that act was in itself a 
declaration of faith in points of essential doctrine 
and polity, though the church has always allowed 
the largest liberty to the individual. 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 6j 

The second seceding church, like the first, went 
to pieces after an existence of a little more than 
sixty years. How any candid and careful historian 
can regard that church as the original church, and 
accept the view that the First Church in Provi- 
dence originated in 1 77 1, is simply unaccountable. 
It is unfortunate that so able a work as Johnson's 
" Universal Cyclopaedia," in its new edition, should 
give publicity to an opinion which has no argu- 
ment in its support, has never had any currency, 
or recognition even, among historians, and rests 
upon an utter misinterpretation of historic facts. 
There needs to be a new edition of this " Cyclo- 
paedia," in which this statement, and other equally 
erroneous statements in reference to the early Bap- 
tists in Rhode Island, shall be revised, corrected, 
and brought into harmony with established and 
accredited history. 

Note 20. A question has been raised in some 
, minds as to the priority of the First Baptist Church 
in Providence over the First Baptist Church in New- 
port, aside from the question of its continuity. As 
we have seen, the date of the origin of the church 
in Providence cannot be determined positively. 
While it is usually given as 1639, it was undoubt- 
edly earlier by one year, possibly by two. 

John Clarke, m. d., one of the founders of New- 
port, a man of great learning, ability, and piety, 
arrived in Boston in November, 1637, where he 



68 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

expected to settle and practise his profession. 
There is not the slightest evidence that he was a 
Baptist at the time of his arrival. He would not 
have been tolerated, if he had been. Good authority 
says he became " a member of the church in Bos- 
ton.' ' His departure from Boston was entirely 
voluntary. He was a lover of peace, and was 
beginning undoubtedly to have some clear concep- 
tions of religious liberty. The antinomian contro- 
versy in connection with Mrs. Anne Hutchinson 
was then at its height. He himself said : ''Seeing 
they were not able so to bear each with other in 
their different understandings and consciences, as 
in those utmost parts of the world to live peace- 
ably together/ ' he voluntarily determined to seek 
another place, " forasmuch as the land was before 
us and wide enough.' ' He went first, with others, 
to New Hampshire, as it is supposed, but finding 
the winter too severe, in the spring he turned 
southward. He had heard of Roger Williams 
and his banishment, and visiting Providence on his 
journey, he with his companions was warmly wel- 
comed by Mr. Williams, and at his suggestion and 
through his agency, they purchased of the Indians 
the island of Aquidneck, now called Rhode Island, 
and planted the new colony at Portsmouth, near 
Newport. This was in March, 1638. 

The colony was composed of many disaffected 
persons from the Massachusetts Bay, some of whom 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 69 

had been excommunicated on account of anti- 
nomian views. Mr. William Hutchinson, the hus- 
band of Anne, appears to have been one of the 
purchasers. She remained with the colony until 
after her husband's death in 1642. Mr. William 
Coddington, a wealthy merchant in Boston and a 
deputy to the court, who had defended Mrs. 
Hutchinson, and opposed, though unsuccessfully, 
the proceedings against Mr. Wheelwright, was the 
first, and John Clarke the second, of the eighteen 
persons whose names appear on the civil com- 
pact, signed March 7, 1638. Soon after, how 
soon we cannot tell, Mr. Coddington, Mr. Clarke, 
and others established the new colony at Newport. 
Being religious people they held services from the 
first. It is recorded that " Mr. John Clarke, who 
was a man of letters, carried on public worship." 
A church was soon organized, which was undoubt- 
edly a Congregational church. The church in 
Boston sent a deputation to it to reprimand it for 
its disorderly conduct. This it would not have 
done, had the church been a Baptist church. The 
nature of the disorderly conduct is apparent from 
"Winthrop's Journal," which says: "They gath- 
ered a church in a very disorderly way ; for they 
took some excommunicated persons, and others 
who were members of the church in Boston and 
were not dismissed." Callender says : "The peo- 
ple who came to Rhode Island [by which he means 



yO THE MOTHER CHURCH 

Portsmouth and Newport] who were Puritans of the 
highest form, had desired and depended on the 
assistance of Mr. Wheelwright, a famous Congre- 
gational minister aforementioned. But he chose to 
go to Long Island, where he continued some years.'' 
These statements prove conclusively the character 
of the church and its doctrinal status. Neither at 
Portsmouth nor at Newport, where a church existed 
possibly as early as 1639 of which Mr. Clarke was 
pastor, is there any appearance thus far of Baptist 
sentiment. Those emigrants from the Massachu- 
setts Bay, who were Baptistically inclined, went to 
Providence and not to Newport, as they would 
have done if there had been Baptists there at the 
beginning of the settlement. Governor Winthrop 
says (Vol. I., p. 293) : " Many of Boston and 
others, who were of Mrs. Hutchinson's judgment 
and party, removed to the isle of Aquiday; and 
others who were of the rigid separation, and 
favored Anabaptism, removed to Providence, so as 
those parts became to be well peopled." 

Moreover, the Newport church is claimed by the 
Congregationalists as being of their faith and order, 
though guilty of disorderly conduct. See " Sketches 
of Congregationalism in Rhode Island," by James 
Gardiner Vose, d. d. Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, pastor 
of the Congregational Church in Newport from 
1755 to 1778, and subsequently president of Yale 
College until his death in 1795, in an unpublished 



THE MOTHER CHURCH J I 

manuscript now in the possession of the church 
which he served, says : ■ 

The first church in Rhode Island was Congregational, 
and settled here [i. e. , in Providence, where the manuscript 
was prepared as an appeal to the Legislature in behalf of an 
act of incorporation for the Newport Congregational Church] 
in the spring of 1636 under Rev. Roger Williams, who 
administered the Lord' s Supper and baptism of infants by 
sprinkling for the first three years, till in 1639 ne an( l his 
church renounced their baptism, and were baptized by 
plunging, Brother Holiman first plunging Mr. Williams, and 
then Mr. Williams in turn plunging the rest or most of them. 
The first church in Newport was gathered there in 1640, 
and was Congregational and Pedobaptist under Dr. Clarke, 
its elder, and continued for about four years, when it became 
Baptist also. . . Though the two Congregational churches, 
Providence and Newport, were broken up and became Bap- 
tist, yet a body of the inhabitants did not lose their Pedo- 
baptism. Their disgust with Boston, however, prevented 
them from having a minister until about 1670, when there 
was found a considerable number of Congregationalists, 
which survived and lived through the desolation of our camp 
by the Baptists and Friends. 

If the supposition is true that Roger Williams and 
his friends organized a church immediately on 
arriving at Providence, Dr. Stiles is undoubtedly 
correct in saying that it was a Congregational 
church. But of such an organization we have 
no knowledge whatever. Stephen Hopkins (" His- 
tory of Providence," 1765) thinks it probable. He 
says : 



72 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

The first church formed at Providence by Mr. Williams 
and others seems to have been on the model of the Congre- 
gational churches in the other New England Colonies. But 
it did not continue long in this form, for most of its mem- 
bers very soon embraced the principles and practices of the 
Baptists, and some time earlier than 1639 gathered and 
formed a church at Providence of that society. 

But, however it may have been in Providence, 
we have evidence that the Newport settlers formed 
a church at once. 

Governor Winthrop says that there were " pro- 
fessed Anabaptists'' on the island in 1640-41. 
This is the earliest intimation we have, from any 
source, of the presence there of any persons claim- 
ing to hold Baptist views. A Mr. Lechford, writing 
January, 1641, of the Newport church, says: "But 
that church, I hear, is now dissolved." Rev. John 
Comer, who was the fifth pastor of the First Bap- 
tist Church in Newport, says (1730) that from "pri- 
vate information" he learned that his church "was 
constituted about 1644." Rev. John Callender, 
his successor, cautiously mentions the same date as 
the traditional one. It seems evident that the first 
church formed in Newport was a Congregational 
church, and went to pieces by reason of differences 
of opinion and changing views, " as was the case 
with divers churches in the country," and that some 
time between 1640 and 1644 Mr. Clarke and some 
of his neighbors accepted Baptist views, and began 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 73 

to hold separate meetings. Dr. A. H. Newman 
says : " It is probable that the Baptist meeting, 
begun in 164 1 or 1642, assumed more completely 
the character of a church in 1644." According to 
Mr. Comer, the first certain record of this church 
bears the date of October 12, 1648, at which time 
there were twelve members in full communion, and 
three others to be added. The traditional number 
of the constituent members of the church is eight. 
When and by whom Mr. Clarke and his com- 
panions were baptized we have no knowledge what- 
ever. The baptism may have been administered 
by Mark Lucar, an English Particular Baptist, who 
came to Rhode Island about this time, and is 
said to have been one of the founders of the New- 
port church. For many years he was one of its 
ruling elders. Or more probably, it was adminis- 
tered by the authorized representative of the church 
in Providence, possibly by Mr. Williams himself. 
But definite knowledge is wanting. It is this 
ignorance that has led a few persons, anxious to 
prove the priority of the First Baptist Church in 
Newport by showing, if possible, that the first 
church formed there was a Baptist church, to sug- 
gest the very improbable conjecture that Mr. Clarke 
had been baptized in the old world. If he had 
been, Roger Williams would have certainly sought 
baptism at his hands, instead of accepting it at the 
hands of Mr. Holiman, who had never been bap- 



74 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

tized. The absence of any regularly qualified ad- 
ministrator has always been regarded by Baptist 
writers as the only and sufficient justification of the 
baptism of Roger Williams by Mr. Holiman. 

Morgan Edwards says of the Newport church : 
" It is said to have been a daughter of the Provi- 
dence church." He also adds of Mr. Clarke: 
" Tradition says that he was a preacher before he 
left Boston, but that he became a Baptist after his 
settlement in Rhode Island by means of Roger 
Williams." Knight and others adopt this view. 
Dr. Armitage's general statement about Mr. Clarke's 
change of views seems correct: "A long train of 
circumstances indicates that his steps had led in the 
same path with those of Williams in the main ; 
through Puritanism, love of religious liberty, dis- 
gust at the intolerance of Massachusetts, and so 
into full Baptist positions." 

It should be added that prior to 1 847 the First 
Baptist Church in Newport did not think of claim- 
ing an earlier origin than 1644. See " Minutes of 
the Warren Association" for 1847. The claims 
made by the church at that time were completely 
answered by a careful and candid " Review," pre- 
pared by Dr. J. N. Granger, Dr. Alexis Caswell, 
and Professor William Gammell, and read to the 
Association September 12, 1850. The claims were 
shown to be groundless, and the arguments urged 
in their support to rest upon an imperfect examina- 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 75 

tion of historic documents and erroneous inferences 
from them. Although the church succeeded at 
that time in changing in the Minutes of the Associa- 
tion the date of its origin from 1644 to 1638, it 
did not succeed in changing the belief of the de- 
nomination at large, or even of the immediate com- 
munity. 

Rev. Henry Jackson, d. d., pastor of the Cen- 
tral Baptist Church in Newport, prepared by vote 
of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention, of 
which he was at that time vice-president, " An 
Account of the Churches in Rhode Island," and 
read it before that body, November 8, 1853. In 
that account he reviewed thoroughly the whole 
question of priority and continuity, having before 
him all known facts pertaining to them, and all the 
arguments presented on both sides, and affirmed 
and reaffirmed his conclusion that the First Church 
in Providence was " the first church gathered in this 
colony, and the first of its kind in the new settle- 
ments of America." He added, " It is evident that 
the main strength of the church belonged to that 
portion of it which at the division continued, as 
the church had always done, in the center of the 
town, and from which all that has ever been of any 
special note to Baptists, or to the denomination at 
large, has emanated." The division to which Dr. 
Jackson referred was the division of 1652. It was 
not until the closing decade of the nineteenth cen- 



?6 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

tury that there arose a historian rash enough to 
assert that the defection of 1771 destroyed the 
light of the Providence church to call itself the 
mother church. Dr. Jackson did not hesitate to 
say : " I do not question that had Comer lived 
until 1739 [that is, until Mr. Callender's discourse 
had been delivered] he would have sympathized 
with Mr. Callender entirely in the chronology of 
these churches." 

Mr. Comer was born August 1, 1704, and was 
ordained pastor of the First Church in Newport, 
May 19, 1726. He could not have been more 
than twenty-five or twenty-six years of age when 
he wrote his manuscript. He did not live to revise 
it, dying May 23, 1734, at the early age 01 thirty 
years. The manuscript was known to be in exist- 
ence for one hundred and seventeen years before 
the church ventured to change the date of its or- 
ganization on the strength of it, and the church 
had had an existence for two hundred years (be- 
lieving that it was probably born in 1644, which 
was four years earlier than the first known record), 
before it thought of adding an ante-natal period of 
six years to its existence. 

In Comer's manuscript, according to the state- 
ment of Mr. Adlam, after the words " the Newport 
church in age is prior to any other Baptist church 
in America," there is this note, " excepting that of 
Providence." Mr. Adlam thinks this was added 



THE MOTHER CHURCH J? 

by a later hand. As the manuscript (or that part of 
the manuscript) which contained the reference to 
Mr. Vaughan's visit to Providence and the age of 
the Newport church, has disappeared, and cannot 
be found in the library either of the Rhode Island 
Historical Society or of the Backus Historical So- 
ciety, it is impossible to verify or disprove Mr. Ad- 
lam's supposition. It is possible that Mr. Comer 
may have ultimately reached a different conclusion. 

On the other hand, the First Baptist Church in 
Providence has always believed that the distinction 
of being the oldest church in this colony, and the 
first Baptist church in America, belongs rightfully 
to it. The preamble to the charter of * i The 
Charitable Baptist Society" connected with the 
church, granted by the General Assembly in May, 
1774, contains the following words: " Being the 
oldest Christian church in the State or Colony." 
The inscription on the bell has been already given. 

This prevailing belief in the church, in Rhode 
Island, and in the entire country, found expression 
in the language of Stephen Hopkins (1765) : 

This first church of Baptists at Providence hath from the 
beginning kept itself in repute, and maintained its disci- 
pline, so as to avoid scandal or schism to this day ; hath al- 
ways been, and still is, a numerous congregation, and in 
which I have with pleasure observed very lately sundry de- 
scendants from each of the above-mentioned families, ex- 
cept Holiman. 



/8 THE MOTHER CHURCH 

The following paragraph is from the "Review" by 
Drs. Granger and Caswell and Professor Gammell : 

The priority in age of the First Church in Providence has 
been asserted by the unanimous voice of Baptists and of 
others. The story has been told by father to son, and 
handed down through thousands of the families of this 
State and land without change. The earliest chronicles 
have recorded it. It has been woven into every history 
which was ever written of the State or of the denomination. 
It is impossible that an event so notorious, so widely pub- 
lished at the time, and so universally received, could then 
or afterward have been misrepresented in this its most im- 
portant particular. 

In the absence of original church records in both 
cases, it is probable that the traditional dates of 
the origin of the two churches, viz., 1639 and 
1644, though the former is undoubtedly a little too 
late and the latter is a little too early, will continue 
to be accepted as approximately correct by the 
great majority of candid students of Baptist his- 
tory, and that the First Church in Providence will 
be recognized by American Baptists, in the future 
-as it has been in the past, as "the mother church." 

The unprejudiced judgment of Prof. George P. 
Fisher, of Yale University, covers the main points, 
which have been considered. In his recent vol- 
ume, "The Colonial Era," p. 143, he says of Dr. 
Clarke and the Newport church : "At Newport he 
was the principal member, and the minister of an 



THE MOTHER CHURCH 79 

Anabaptist church — to use the name then current— 
which, after a few years, was gathered there. 1 ' And 
of Roger Williams and his baptism, and the Provi- 
dence church, he uses the following language (p. 
123): "In 1638 Williams was immersed by an 
Anabaptist named Holyman, and then he himself 
immersed Holyman and ten others. There was 
thus constituted the first Baptist church in Amer- 
ica." 




INDEX 



Adlam, Rev. Samuel 47, 76 

Anabaptists: religious liberty 
first proclaimed by, in 
Switzerland, 12 ; in Germany, 
Holland, and England, 12; 
martyrs for it, 12; practised 
immersion, 29, 30; drift to 
Providence, 70 ; appeared in 

Newport 72 

Armitage, Thomas, d. D...47, 48, 74 
Arnold, Hon. Samuel G 45 

Backus, Rev. Isaac 45, 46 

Baptists of England: pro- 
claimed religious liberty and 
separation of Church and 
State, 12 ; 13 ; when immersion 
was introduced among them. 
28-31; the First Particular 
church organized. 30 ; prac- 
tised laying on of hands, 52 ; 
some of them practised feet- 
washing 52 

Barber, Edward 29, 31 

Barrows, Comfort E., d. d 41, 55 

Batten, John 30 

Berkeley, Bish. George 42 

Blount, Richard 30 

Boston: Roger Williams ar- 
rived at, 15 ; John Clarke ar- 
rived at. 67 ; hatred of, 
against Providence, 15 ; 
church in, sent deputation to 
Congregational church in 

Newport 69 

Bradford, Governor William 33 



Brown, Chad : settled in Provi- 
dence, 20; minister of the 

church 20, 39, 46, 50 

Brown, Rev. James 58 

Brown, Joseph 64 

Brown, Moses 63 

Brown, Nicholas 44 

Brown University 22, 38 

Bunyan Church, Bedford 65 

Burrage, Henry S., d. d 36, 47 

Busher, Leonard 28, 30, 31 

Caldwell, Samuel L., d. D...40, 42 
43,47,53 

Callender, Rev. John........ 46, 69, 72 

Caswell, President Alexis, " Re- 
view of Adlam " by 74, 77, 78 

Chauncey, Rev. Charles ; ar- 
rived at Plymouth, 35 ; de- 
sired as assistant pastor, pas- 
tor at Scituate, believed in in- 
fant and adult immersion.. 35, 36 

Clarke, Rev. James 41 

Clarke, Rev. John, m. d. : re- 
ferred to, 36, 41, 67 ; arrived in 
Boston and left because of its 
unhappy condition, 67, 68 ; 
visited Roger Williams. 68 ; 
at his suggestion planted col- 
ony at Portsmouth, 68 : signer 
of the civil compact, 69; re- 
moved with colony to New- 
port, 69 ; a preacher, 69, 73, 78 ; 
when he became a Baptist, 
72, 74 : when and where bap- 
tized, 73 ; becoming a Baptist 74 
8i 



82 



INDEX 



Coddington, William.. 33, 34, 36 
41, 68, 69 

Confessions : of Anabaptists at 
Schleitheim, 12; of English 
Baptists 12, 13 

Comer, Rev. John.. 41, 46, 48, 49 
72, 75, 76 

Crandall, John 23 

Davis, Aaron 63 

Dexter, Gregory : settled in 
Providence, 20 ; minister of 

the church 20, 46, 48, 50 

Dexter, Henry M., d. d... 15, 27 

31,32, 33, 34 

Drown, Solomon 60 

Dunster, Henry 23 

Dyer, John 61 

Edwards, Morgan 45. 73 

Evans' " Early English Bap- 
tists " 52 

Featly, Doctor 31 

Felt, Joseph Barlow 35 

First Baptist Church in New- 
port : spoken of, 41, 47, 48. 49 ; 
younger than the Providence 
church, 67-78; origin of 72; 
traditional date concerning, 
72 ; first certain record of, 72 ; 
number of constituent mem- 
bers, 73; daughter of the 
Providence church, 73: its 
former view of the date of its 
origin, 74; when changed. 
74 ; change shown to be un- 
warranted, 74. 75; view of 
Com r and Adlam, 75, 76 ; 
uniformly rejected, 77, 78; 

final statement 78 

First Baptist Church in Provi- 
dence : date of organization 
unknown, 16: traditional 
date of organization, 17 ; true 



date probably earlier, 17; 
how church originated, 16; 
constituent members, 17, 18; 
a New Testament church, 18; 
without articles of faith, 19, 
65 ; basis of union, 19 ; its 
first ministers unpaid, 20, 21, 
22 ; its first house of worship, 
21, 42 ; its second, 21 ; its 
present, 21, 43-45 ; had plu- 
rality of elders, 20, 40, 41 ; a 
Six Principle church, 22, 
45-63 ; the first separation, 22, 
45-57, 75 ; the second separa- 
tion, 22, 57-67, 75 ; influenced 
by the establishment of the 
college and the pastorate of 
President Manning, 22; the 
mother church, 23, 67-78; 
never ceased to be a Baptist 
church, 65 ; joined Warren 
Association, 66 ; and so made 
declaration of faith, 66 ; older 
than the Newport church, 
67-78; view of Comer and 
Adlam, 75, 76 ; priority never 
questioned in the church or 
the denomination at large, 77, 

78; final statement 78 

Fisher, Prof. George P., d. d 78 

Fox, George 40 

Gammell, Prof William: ex- 
tracts from his " Life of Roger 
Williams," 25, 26, 27; "His- 
tory of First Baptist Church," 
40 ; " Review of Adlam ".74, 77, 78 

Gano, Rev. Stephen, m. d 22, 53 

George, John 23 

Gould, Thomas 23 

Granger, J. N., d. d., " Review 
of Adlam " by 74, 77, 78 

Hague, William, d. d. : extract 
from his" Historical Dis- 



INDEX 



83 



course at the Two Hundredth 
Anniversary of the First Bap- 
tist Church " 14, 15 

Holiman, Ezekiel : baptized 
Roger Williams and baptized 
by Williams, 11, 71, 78; he 
and wife members of First 
Church, 17, 18; justification 
of his baptism of Roger 

Williams 73 

Holmes, Obadiah 23 

Hopkins, Stephen 46, 71, 77 

Howe, Samuel: tribute to by 

Williams 14 

Hutchinson, William 68 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne 17, 68 

Immersion: when introduced 
among the English Baptists, 
27-31 ; not a modern rite, 28, 
30 ; view of Dr. H. M. Dexter, 
27 ; view of Prof. W. H. Whit- 
sitt, 32; always practised by 
Eastern Church. 28; pre- 
scribed by English Prayer 
Book, 34; infant immersion 
practised in Church of Eng- 
land till the seventeenth cen- 
tury 28 

Jackson, Henry, d. d 74, 75 

Jenks, Daniel 60 

Jenks, Governor Joseph 45 

Johnson's New* Universal Cy- 
clopaedia 32, 66, 67 

Johnston Church : organized at, 
61, 62, 64 ; became extinct 66 

Kimn manuscript 30 

King's Chapel, Boston 65 

Knight's "History of the Six 
Principle Baptists "...50, 53, 55 

60,62,74 

Know^es Prof. James D., " Life 
of Roger Williams" 43 



Laying on of hands : a practice 
of the church, 22, 45-63; its 
long prevalence, 45, 53, 62; 
difference of opinion as to it, 
57, 58; its final discontin- 
uance, 59-63; practised by 
English Baptists, 52 ; and by 
New England Baptists gen- 
erally, 52, 53 : its gradual dis- 
appearance, 55; a few Bap- 
tist churches still retain it.. 55-57 

Lucar, Mark 36, 73 

" Manning and Brown Univer- 
sity," by Reuben A. Guild, 
ll.d 58, 59, 63 

Manning, James, d. d. : came 
to Providence, 22; president 
of college and pastor of the 
church, 22 ; preached dedica- 
tion sermon, 43 ; influence on 
the church, 59, 63 ; had been 
"under hands," 59 ; but a lib- 
eral in opinion 60, 61 

Newman, Prof. Albert H., d. d. 
33,34, 54, 72 

Newport: settled, 67-69; civil 
compact signed, 69; some of 
colonists, 68, 69: distinction 
between them and the peo- 
ple of Providence, 70; pros- 
perity, 42 ; its earliest church 
not Baptist, 69-72 ; claimed by 
Congregationalists, 70, 71 ; be- 
c a m e extinct, 71, 72 ; suc- 
ceeded by Baptist church... 72, 78 

Olney, Thomas: himself and 
wife excommunicated at Sa- 
lem and members of church 
in Providence, 17 ; minister 
of the church, 20, 48; with- 
drew from church, 22, 45, 53 ; 
organized another, 45, 53 ; 
which died 46, 47 



8 4 



INDEX 



Olney, Thomas, Jr 46 

Osborne, Thomas 23 

Painter, Thomas 23 

Philadelphia Confession of 
Faith 57 

Plymouth : afraid to offend the 
inhabitants of the Bay, 10; 
sent Roger Williams out of 
its borders, 10 ; President 
Chauncey arrived at, 35 ; de- 
sired him as assistant pastor.. 35 

Providence: named, 9; his- 
toric ground, 10; the birth- 
place of civil and religious lib- 
erty, 12, 39 ; the colonists, 18, 
20 ; distinction between them 
and the people of Newport 70 

Reeves, Mrs., a widow, ex- 
communicated at Salem, and 
member of church in Provi- 
dence 18 

Religious Liberty : a " pestilen- 
tial " doctrine, 10; first pro- 
claimed, 12, 13; partial 
triumph in Holland, 10; an 
Anabaptist doctrine, 15 ; first 
guaranteed, 11, 39 ; the ulti- 
mate thought of the New Tes- 
tament 15, 16 

Rhode Island Baptist State Con- 
vention 75 

Salem : Williams banished 
from, 9 ; excluded members 
of church 17, 18 

Scituate: Chauncey pastor at, 
35 ; belief in adult immersion 
and practice of infant im- 
mersion 35, 36 

Scott, Richard : mention of him 
and wife, 17, 18; asserts im- 
mersion of Roger Williams, 
33 ; and length of his connec- 
tion with the church 36 



Screven, William 23 

Second Baptist Church in New- 
port 41, 49, 54, 55, 56 

Second Baptist Church in Prov- 
idence: separated from the 
First Church, 22, 47-49, 54; 
became extinct 46, 47 

Smith, Hezekiah, d. d., warned 
off of God's earth for preach- 
ing 10, 26 

Sprague's Annals of the Amer- 
ican Baptist Pulpit, quoted... 26 

Stanford, Rev. John 39 

Stanley, Dean Arthur P 28 

Stiles, Ezra, d. d. : mentioned, 
70 ; important unpublished 
manuscript of 70, 71 

Story, Judge, tribute to Roger 
Williams 12 

Straus, Oscar S., "Roger Wil- 
liams, the Pioneer of Relig- 
ious Liberty " 39 

Throgmorton, John, and wife, 
excommunicated in Salem, 
members in Providence 17 

Tillinghast, Pardon : admitted 
to citizenship in Providence, 
20, 51 ; minister of the church, 
20; built meeting-house, 21; 
gave it to church, 42, 43; 
view of a paid ministry, 45 ; 
knowledge of the church, 51 ; 
says it was Six Principle, 51, 
63 ; important memorandum 
of deed 51, 52 

Vaughn, William 48 

Vedder, Prof. Henry C 29, 49 

Vose, James G., d. d 70 

Warren Association 55, 66, 74 

W T ayland, Francis, d. d 63 

Westcott, Stukely, and wife, ex- 
communicated in Salem, 
members in Providence 17 



INDEX 



85 



Wheelwright, Rev. John 69 

Whitsitt, William H., d. D...32, 66, 67 
Wickenden, William : settled 
in Providence, 20; minister 

of the church 20, 39, 46, 48, 50 

Wightman, Rev. Daniel 41 

Williams, Roger: banished, 9; 
forbidden to cross Massachu- 
setts, 9 ; went to England via 
New York, 10; refused shelter 
by the Pilgrims, 10; crossed 
the Seekonk and welcomed by 
the Indians, 10, 11 ; baptized 
by Holiman, 11 ; administered 
baptism, 11 ; nature of his 1 
baptism, 20-38, 78 ; his home 
and grave, 11 ; entered into 
covenant with the natives, 11 ; 
with his companions, 11 ; 
founder of religious liberty 
and a Baptist colony, 11, 12 ; 
did not originate the idea, 
12; acquainted with Dutch, 
13 ; acquainted with English 
Baptists, 14; charged with 
Anabaptistry , 15; founder 
and minister of the First 
Church in Providence, 19, 44 ; 
withdrew from its fellow- 
ship and became a Seeker, 



19, 20 ; remained in sentiment 
a Baptist, 20, 40 ; was un- 
doubtedly immersed, 33-38, 
71, 78; believed in laying 
on of hands, 50; won Dr. 
John Clarke to the Baptist 
faith 74 

Willmarth, J. W., d. d 56 

Winslow, Governor, letter from, 
to Williams 25, 26 

Winsor, Rev. Samuel 58 

Winsor, Rev. Samuel, Jr. : pas- 
tor of the church in Provi- 
dence, 22 ; withdrew and or- 
ganized church in Johnston, 
22, 47 ; the reasons for it 59-62 

Winthrop, John : mentioned, 
39 ; letter of Williams to, 50 ; 
says there were Anabaptists 
at Newport 72 

Winthrop's Journal : account of 
Williams' baptism in, 17; 
character of the earliest 
church in Newport as found 
in, 69; distinction between 
the settlers of Providence 
and those of Newport as 
given by 70 

Witter, William 23 






^ — -Vt 


» > 
» ^ 

x> : 




15 


> 


>3 




> 
> 






> Y^ 



v^ 


^> 


>3T 




^> 


xa 


>i> 


> :> 


>> 


> > ;> 


> j 


> 


"y > . 


> 


> 


> > 3 


> > 


> 


3 3 


> "> 


o» 


3 ) 


> > 




3 "■> 






>-5 


> 




:» -> 


-> ) 




>> 


> 




> 7 


> 3j 





:>>;> >> >:> 

> >> »>J> ^ 

> >> > > >> 






» ^ — 



^> 2 < 


o> 


>:> :> 


v> 


> > 3 


> > 


» ,> 


>> 


^"* ? 


.> > 


Sfe> -> 


> > 


^K> > 


>> 


32. < 


» 


r» > 


it* 



» > 7 

» > : 
» > : 
^>^> i 



5 2*> 



3 > 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 064 259 6 






